The signing yesterday of French defender Clinton Nsiala caught most of the support by surprise. We at Ibrox Noise were aware of interest in the lad, but we were blindsided more than a spot at the speed at which Rangers got this one done and announced.

And that’s fair enough, the story was already out there, but it was announced officially almost as quickly as the ‘rumour’ began, so Rangers clearly did a decent job of keeping it in-house.

So what do we make of this one?

Well, as we reported recently, Rangers’ policy this summer is cheap unheard of youth from other clubs, either in their senior teams or otherwise, and then trying to turn these lads into assets.

Nsiala, 20, is very much in this mould.

He is literally a youth player, because he’s never played a minute of senior football in his career and despite claims from a Milan blog that he was offered a three-year contract extension to remain in Italy, we’ve not seen anything official on that one.

He did manage 7 senior bench appearances, including in the Champions League, but despite Milan fielding many young players in recent seasons, Nsiala couldn’t get his foot in the door even as a sub. And Milan are not the side of old, despite their league position.

We’re not any more excited by this one than Jefte. The club really is putting a lot of eggs in the basket of young kids, and so far both new signings are exactly that.

Same as Silva was, same as Cortes.

Some club outlets are defending it entirely, justifying it, and that’s fair enough – you spin it your way, we’ll spin it ours.

And we’re not feeling that the players coming in are quite at the calibre we need to push for a title.

In truth, they’re really no better than what a midtable SPL side would sign and then sell for a profit.

But, this is the path we’re now on, and we just keep crossing our fingers the club knows what it’s doing.