With the near-confirmed addition of South Africa’s Olwethu Mpilwenhle Makhanya (easy for us to say) to Rangers’ summer transfers, where does this now leave spending?
See, Ibrox Noise and most other Rangers sources have crunched the numbers and it appeared Rangers required to sell Nico Raskin to unlock more transfers.
Simply put, this doesn’t seem to be the case any longer, and Makhanya will be around £5M on top of the £4.5M we just splurged on Vanja Dragojevic.
Numbers
Ignoring sales, Rangers’ expenditure now this summer is getting into the serious territory.
It began with Ross McCrorie. He was a compact £1M from Bristol. He was followed up by the next paid-for transfer, Hull City’s Ivor Pandur. The Croat set Rangers back £6M.
There were a few loans and Bosmans next before Rangers put their hand in their pocket to secure high-profile signing Vanja Dragojevic. The Serb cost Derek McInnes’ side £4.5M.
And now with Makhanya also arriving soon, the South African stopper is going to be around £5M.
Signings
This means that with Rangers’ 8 summer signings, £16.5M has been spent. Around about the same as the fan share issue generated.
Now, the transfer window doesn’t shut for ages, and Rangers have plenty time to get more players in, but with it fast-approaching £20M, it’s clear the club is spending.
And this does contradict the ‘unlock’ theory as well.
Information that Ibrox Noise had, similar to other sources, was that Rangers just couldn’t spend any more without selling.
Well, it was more than the club principally refused to.
Tannadice
But as we close in on Tannadice and the serious action, it appears there’s been a change in policy.
Rangers are still banking on the Raskin transfer, but the board have clearly decided to go ahead and just sign players after all.
Despite the fact sales have been completely pathetic and nowhere near covered the outgoing.
If Rangers are to get off to a good start on Friday and make a fist of the Europa League qualifiers, we couldn’t go into it without new blood. And it looks like the club have decided that FFP is safe, accounts are decent, and we will invest after all.
The cash was there, as we said – the £16M share issue has covered this spending cleanly.
It’s not ideal, and the selling would have been useful, but for now, the club wants to win.
And as long as we’re safe within our means and breaking no rules, it appears that aim is being funded.