With the red tops once again mentioning Lawrence Shankland to Rangers, the simple reality about signing the striker comes under two definitions, per se.

Does Rangers manager Philippe Clement actually want him, and can Rangers afford him?

So Rangers fan account Hand and Heart did suggest that nothing about Clement has hinted he’s in any way interested in the Hearts striker, but as Ibrox Noise has reported many times, player choices aren’t really his, exactly. He generally ‘takes what he’s given’. So unless he’s outright told Nils Koppen it’s a flat ‘no’ on Shankland, there’s no reason why Clement’s desire or otherwise to have the Scotland man is actually all that relevant. The latest reports say he’s ‘changed his mind’.

The second part is that at the moment, it’s a simple no. We can’t afford anyone without sales. The mooted price for the 28-year-old in the last year of his deal is anywhere between £1.5M-£3M – Hearts will want to maximise what they can get before losing him for free next summer, but they know that only goes so far.

So without money, obviously buying Shankland is a bit of a non-starter, naturally. Buying anyone is. This is why Rangers are trying to ship players out big time now, we need the money for new signings. And there’s the issue of Cyriel Dessers as well.

That is to say, Dessers is open to leaving, even although he says he’s happy, but the PAOK interest went quiet as did the overtures from Serie A – Rangers are logically looking at selling him and just replacing like for like. But that’s a bit dangerous as without him Rangers have just Danilo as a striker, and he’s no number 11. If we ship out Dessers to fund Shankland we’d better hope we strike a deal quickly with Hearts.

Shankland has become the new Alan Smith or Vladi Weiss – a spook transfer story which runs for borderline years and never actually happens.

As for whether Shankland will break that trend we suppose time as always will tell. But there’s quite a few hoops to jump through first.