Rangers have until midnight this evening to secure the signing of Dutch defender Robin Pröpper or he (nor any other new subsequent signings) will be unable to face Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League Third Round of qualifying on Tuesday.

With Rangers already nowhere near ready to face a side who demolished Partizan 9-2 on aggregate, the addition of the Dutchman would have evened up the odds a speck, but it’s starting to look extremely unlikely the soon-to-be ex-Twente captain will have his paperwork before the end of play today.

The speculated timeline has been mooted as Friday which will unfortunately be too late, and Rangers’ defence v the Ukrainians will certainly feature Ben Davies in that case, as it 99% will v Hearts on Saturday.

We see next-to-no chance of a Leon Balogun John Souttar pairing.

But the UEFA deadline just seems to have come simply too fast for Propper, and it appears Rangers are set to go forward for the next two or three fixtures without anything useful at the back at all.

Indeed, we can’t even know for sure Propper will even accept personal terms in his negotiations, so there’s still that obstacle to overcome in itself.

This signing isn’t cut and dried yet – he is here, has undergone medical, but the full details still need to be sorted out.

And that’s up in the air for now.

Who knows, we may be shocked by an announcement today that he’s signed on the dotted line.

But time is running out on that.