Rangers would seem to have lost out formally on Rapid Bucharest’s Albion Rrahmani after the Romanian side increased the asking price on the Kosovo striker’s signature from the previous £5M to approaching £7.5M.

It had been understood Rangers had submitted an offer of £6M to blow rival Slavia Praha and their £3M intentions out of the water, but the Neil Lennon-managed side are shifting the goalposts of their player by hiking the numbers as much as they can and now even Rangers’ £6M isn’t enough.

It had been confirmed by club president Viorel Moldovan that the received bid wasn’t enough, and that appears to be a change in policy of the £5M sum they’d previously been willing to accept for Rrahmani.

The problem fundamentally here is whether Rangers did bid on the striker, whether it was £6M or £3M, the club is being priced out with Bucharest’s president and Celtic-leaning manager Lennon very much eager not to sell for pennies and in Lennon’s case, not to Rangers.

And Rangers are absolutely not spending approaching £8M on a lad who might be free-scoring in Romania, but it’s Romania, not the Premier League, and Rangers do not have £8M to waste on a player who may or may not make the step up to a club the size of Rangers and the demands there are in Govan.

This appears to be a deal that is dead in the water as far as Rangers are concerned and the club will move onto other targets.

It’s not strictly that Rangers don’t have the money, it’s that we won’t be fleeced, not by Neil Lennon anyway.