Rangers’ window cannot be just ‘untapped’ young ‘hidden’ gems from South America, because the club will need some proven quality and marquee talent, and not all being sub-21-years-old either.
And on that note a glut of first-team talent was today released by Tottenham Hotspur:
Ryan Sessegnon, Eric Dier, Ivan Perisic and Japhet Tanganga.
Forget Dier, he’s already signed for Bayern Munich, and Ivan Perisic may be a top player on paper but he’s reaching the end of his career and struggled last season at Hadjuk on loan. If he can’t thrive in the modest Croatian league we suspect Rangers might be a step too high for him at the moment.
The two in question maybe worth examining closely are former £35M man Ryan Sessegnon, and Japhet Tanganga, peak of £15M, both defenders.
The big stand out issues here are injuries – Sessegnon is only 24 but has suffered a plethora of injury blight, missing 130 career matches already.
Tanganga isn’t as bad, at a year older, but has also missed a chunk of minutes with injury.
These two are frustrating – their injuries probably stopped them ever getting into the England setup, because despite the amount they were unfit for, they are top, top players.
But never available and understandably released by Ange’s Tottenham. Think Ryan Jack and Kemar Roofe – these two were this for Spurs, fantastic when available but so rarely able to sustain a run of fitness.
Should Rangers take a punt on them?
Well, when one looks at £50M of football talent in front of one, it’s too easy to want them on board because of how good they are in theory.
But after the utter disaster of Aaron Ramsey and HIS prior injury issues (which continued at Ibrox) Rangers would be thick as mince to ever take that risk again.
After a season deeply disrupted by injured players, Rangers must not ever be tempted by players like Tanganga or Sessegnon – as good as they are, anyone with significant injury history is to be avoided.
It doesn’t matter how good they are, or what their market values once were, Rangers cannot go near anyone with a bad history for being unavailable.
We’ve spent too long wasting too much time and too many wages on great players who couldn’t repay the investment on the pitch, so whether it’s Messi, Ronaldo or Roofe, we’re done with that.
No injuries please.