In a story which would be a tad underwhelming if true, Rangers are reportedly looking at Dutch-born Australian winger Raphael Borges Rodrigues, 20, who currently plies his trade in the A-League with MacArthur FC.
Now, the immediate reaction from some would be that ‘them lot’ did ok with an Australian manager and a few Australian players in there, and that’s true, but this is an untested rookie in a legendarily average league.
This really isn’t the calibre we’re seeking, but we’ll look at his record anyway:
6 goals, 2 assists in 32 appearances and with a market value of barely £300,000, this supposed interest Rodrigues screams to us of agent mischief, because he’s out of contract next summer.
Nothing quite like throwing a European giant’s name into the mix to try to persuade the current employer to extend the present deal – a classic case of this was Kenny McLean, who was never leaving Norwich but his agent name-dropped Rangers into the equation and hey presto he got the new deal he wanted.
We’re not saying Rodrigues a terrible player, he is only 20 and has a few goals and assists at club and national youth level, but then he reads like a poor man’s Fabio Silva and that doesn’t appeal to us too much.
We know this is very much into silly season, and it’s our job to report the information we get – if we’re convinced a story is a duffer, we’ll tell you, because we’ll not pull the wool over your eyes and try to persuade you Sam Lammers is a football player.
If you recall our reaction to signing that guy, it was hardly positive. We couldn’t have been more right, unfortunately.
And this boy doesn’t fill us with confidence either.
We very much hope this is agent talk, OR we’re wildly wrong about the lad and he’s a sensation.
Time, as always, will tell.