Rangers fans are divided over the club signing ‘Scottish’…

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Rangers fans are divided over the club signing ‘Scottish’…
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 24: Scott Arfield of Rangers is seen at full time during the Cinch Scottish Premiership match between Rangers and Heart of Midlothian at Ibrox Stadium on May 24, 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

There’s an increased division among some Rangers fans about the ‘ethnicity’ of the players coming in.

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We’re seeing a few arguments online about ‘signing Scottish’ with many angry responses saying ‘as long as they play well where they come from doesn’t matter’.

The problem is they generally aren’t playing very well, are they?

But nevertheless the argument from both sides has merit.

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Rangers should not care whether a player is black, white, gay, straight, whatever country they come from – we don’t think Walter was all that bothered that Brahim Hemdani was a Muslim from Algeria, or that Alex McLeish was bothered by Jean Alain Boumsong being a black man from France.

The point is both were great players.

The problem?

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That we don’t today have the Scots either Eck or Walter did back in those days.

No Boyd, Weir, McGregor, Whittaker, Miller, Broadfoot, Barry, Thomson, Naismith…

We have basically zero decent Scots today, and that affects the UEFA rules for homegrown talent and quota – the only viable Scots we have are Scott Wright, Robby McCrorie, John Souttar and… we’re already struggling.

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Which means that Nils Koppen and Philippe Clement saturating Rangers’ squad with Africans, South Americans and basically anything but Scottish players is an issue.

Rangers have just stopped signing good Scottish players, Souttar being the closest we’ve had in some time to such a thing.

Let’s not make any lies that there are no good Scottish players – there’s plenty, and we’re seeing tonnes of them in the national team that will face Germany tonight.

It’s just been a choice, to veer away from signing these players and instead go to an obscure foreign league and bring in a third division nobody, just hoping he’ll be a hidden gem.

Even Steven Gerrard, who was mildly xenophobic about Scottish players, did bring in a good core for the club in Arfield, McGregor and his heavy use of Ryan Jack albeit that was a Pedro signing. He did build his team around some major Scottish players, even if he definitively favoured English ones like Joe Aribo over Greg Docherty etc.

But today?

No one.

There’s just no Scottish in this team.

Is that why we’re so poor?

Ask Celtic – they have had McGregor and recently Forrest not to mention Taylor and Ralston as the core of their team for years.

One of these teams is a load better than the other, and while we’re not saying the players’ nationality is the sole reason, well, it’s part of the problem isn’t it?

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