Rangers are set to make major changes over the next week to 10 days (our old favourite) after it emerged five significant first-team players appear to be closing in on Ibrox exits.
Connor Goldson was undergoing a medical in Cyprus ahead of a proposed £2.5M move to Aris Limassol, James Tavernier was awaiting the latest on Trabzonspor and Rangers’ negotiations over the fee of his move to Turkey, Scott Wright’s long-hyped move to Sheffield Wednesday was back on, Ianis Hagi was nearing a move to Italy with Fiorentina and Todd Cantwell’s exit was now looking infinitely likelier albeit we don’t have a courting club just yet beyond some unnamed English sides.
The reality is one promise manager Philippe Clement made many weeks ago that he has kept is that this summer was to be the end of a cycle at Ibrox, and some changing of the guard was coming.
Of what we’re seeing, first with all the released players at the start of the window and now the very, very strong overtures of a bunch of other players headed out as well, there is no denying the changes are being rung.
Of course the downside is we don’t exactly have depth, so of the players we have, despite the squad being not good enough, getting rid of them simply weakens the pool of (bad) options that we have.
There are more to head out as well, Rangers still desperately trying to figure out a way to ship Dutch striker Sam Lammers off to Holland, while Ben Davies, Kieran Dowell, Tom Lawrence et al are regarded as extensively expendable.
The problem of course is none are coming in yet, but as Ibrox Noise reported (and Clement confirmed), we can’t buy till we sell, and the five players at the start of this piece that Rangers are trying to get off the payroll will all earn transfer fees.
Indeed, Rangers could save around £130,000pw by shipping them out, and the incoming transfer kitty received could be considerably over £15M. It’s not a fortune to play with, but Rangers can still do a fair chunk with that, and it would nail the £25M summer budget Ibrox Noise reported Clement was looking at (We’ve already spent around £9M).
But these transfers need to happen first.
We await news on that.