Rangers Director of Football Recruitment Nils Koppen has dropped a huge reveal about Rangers’ transfer strategy, and it has implications going forward.
The DOFR was speaking to Rangers Review about the policy going forward and dropped a subtle but massively significant policy in the interview itself.
Speaking about England’s Championship division, Koppen revealed that Rangers don’t intend to scout as intensively in that sector, and that he ‘doesn’t believe’ in signing from there, because of ridiculously inflated prices for players Rangers would deem good enough.
It is notable that not a single signing Rangers made under Koppen this summer or in January came from England’s Championship, 14 signings in total.
This is significant indeed.
Ibrox Noise has long-believed the bulk of players in that division are miles off the quality or mental fortitude it takes to win for Rangers.
In the Championship, there is no must win team in the way Rangers are, obviously because any team that wins there ends up in the Premier League, and often, relegated the following season.
Previously Rangers managers pre-2012 rarely signed from the Championship, with only SPL, top flight Europe or indeed Premier League players scouted and joining up.
Championship (and lower) players have often been a product of the post-2012 era, with a conveyer belt of rubbish arriving in Govan and rarely-to-never being ‘any good’.
At present, Rangers’ Championship signings are Kieran Dowell and Tom Lawrence, unless we wish to count Leon Balogun from QPR, and of course none of these were the present regime’s captures.
We agree with that part of the policy, Rangers need better than the Championship also-rans (no disrespect intended) because Rangers have to win every match defacto.
Koppen did say he needs a full season to really put the whole strategy to good use, but we’d imagine a year qualifies too and we could see some good talent arrive in January.
Pity Koppen was quite happy with last January, because that was a poor window.