Philippe Clement has once again addressed new Rangers signing Hamza Igamane and it’s a very strange situation.
We’ll quote what he said and then make comments on it:
“Hamza is doing parts of the training now with the group, so step by step he’s going to the physical level that we need in the training and later on in the games. He’s showing a lot of interesting things with the ball, what we saw in the images that we saw from him in the games in Morocco.”
This is one of the oddest signings Rangers have ever made, bar few.
Clement appears to be confirming here that no one at Ibrox scouted this boy in person, that he was brought to Rangers’ attention via video footage and that’s why the club signed him. This is up there with a YouTube video of all a player’s best bits which made Sam Lammers look like Lionel Messi.
We really hope the club did a lot more forensic work about the lad, and that he was scouted in person. But going by the rest, we’re really not sure.
There’s also confirmation that the lad is completely green around the ears, and despite being far from a young boy (he’s 21) he’s miles away from being ready to play – that he is going step by step to the physical level needed to even TRAIN for Rangers never mind play.
We must admit this whole line of reasoning is rather unprecedented in living memory – signing a first team player for around £2.5M from a new market, then having to work with him for many weeks if not months till he’s actually ‘ready’ emotionally and physically to play for your team?
Fair enough when it’s a youth player plucked from another club’s Academy, but this boy was a senior player with FAR RABAT and the idea he was nowhere near ready to play for the first team at Ibrox is utterly bizarre.
Now, we repeat, 4lads did break the news (a story ignored by many) that he was injured just over a couple of months ago, tail end of last season to be exact, and we’ve already reported that on Ibrox Noise.
What we can’t understand is whether this delay and press conference is lip service to cover that injury and its recovery, or whether that info was just wrong and Clement is shooting straight that the boy is just emotionally and physically not ready yet to play for Rangers.
Then we’d have to ask why he was signed?
Either way either we missed an injury in the medical, or we spent £2.5M on a player who is nowhere near ready to play for the first team.
Neither are good.