There is a growing sense that Rangers’ incoming business in the transfer window is in fact presently complete, and that Philippe Clement and the club have decided not to work on any more incoming deals unless something significant and standout surfaces and/or sales materialise.
Rangers have made 8 new signings this window, at a cost so far of £13M (inc. £4.5M for Diomande) and have sold two major players in Sam Lammers and Connor Goldson – a tonne were released.
While Ibrox Noise demonstrated how there’s a bunch more the club seeks to ship out (Hagi, Cantwell, Devine etc) we can’t really see a massive wad of cash coming in from here on in for any of them, which dictates what else we can do this window.
And for now, the squad we have is the one we’re going into the new season more or less with.
Is it complete?
The Kyiv result has massively helped with pulling a heap of pressure from Philippe Clement, and he also has Oscar Cortes and Nicolas Raskin among others to come back from injury, so it’s marginally in a better place than it was.
There’s also the fact defence now has 3 solid stoppers – Propper, Balogun and Souttar, while Tavernier is a law unto himself at RB and Ridvan will hopefully have a good campaign at LB.
Midfield is actually almost good. We need more from Diomande, but Barron is terrific, but the centre lacks power. We hope to see that from Dujon Sterling if Clement continues playing him there.
Attacking midfield is, however, dreadful. We only have Tom Lawrence because everyone else is leaving or gone. It’s so poor – and he flits in and out of matches as it is.
Wings are actually alright – aside Cortes we have 5 options – Cerny, Jefte, McAusland, Matondo, and Wright. Jefte may well have been a masterstroke at LW and McAusland was improved in midweek.
Striker… it’s lacking quality, and Cyriel Dessers remains as divisive as ever but him, Danilo and eventually Igamane whenever he’s ready will be the options.
And that’s what Clement, for now, must work with.
What Rangers lack is power, pure power, big strong lads who have no issues smashing opponents out of the way. But we’ve lacked that since promotion so it’s really nothing new.
As things stand, this is likely Rangers’ squad for the new season, and we can’t see many more coming in unless we get sales.