In John Bennet’s wide-ranging interview with Rangers TV today, the Chairman covered the finances, and revealed exactly what Ibrox Noise has been reporting for the past few weeks:

The current outlay of transfers stands at £11.5M, just £1,500,000 higher than your favourite Rangers site stated.

For clarity, he expressed that this is for the whole calendar year, so in theory that included January, but he also emphasised it refers to permanent signings.

We didn’t make of those in January, just loans.

Meaning that in permanent signings, we have spent £11.5M this window.

Ibrox Noise has been trying to explain that Mohamed Diomande set us back £4.5M when his purchase clause activated, while Hamza Igamane cost £2.5M.

Connor Barron will cost around £500,000 or so when a tribunal rules the final cost for what was a free agent but whose development fee needs remunerated, and Jefte cost around £1M.

That’s £8.5M. £3M short, right?

Well, no, don’t forget the signing on fees, which remain completely private but are why frees aren’t actually frees at all. Barron would have cost a few hundred thousand, Kelly the same, and Nsiala quite a few as well. There’s also the wages themselves, agent fees, administration, and ultimately, a cost of about the £11.5M for this year Bennett talks about.

And that Ibrox Noise has been preaching in general, to the usual derision of the punters who know better.

We certainly projected it was about £9M in raw fees, and we stand by that. The signing on numbers and extra costs is what takes it into £11M-£11.5M territory.

So the club is spending, it is spending, but we’re not seeing a lot of sign of the squad getting strong with that.

We don’t think the board are the bad guys, but they could have handled a few things better.

Until Bennett takes legal action against a sponsorship so he can plug his own car firm instead using Ibrox real estate, we won’t criticise him too much.

Not yet anyway.