Ironically, hot off the press, only moments after Ibrox Noise had given our exposé of what has been happening behind the scenes regarding John Souttar, the news broke that the Scotland defender had clinched his move out of Rangers. The timing could not have been more amusing, or indeed ironic as John Souttar exits Rangers. And the former Hearts man secured his exit to Aris Thessaloniki of Greece.
The final deal has not completely been resolved yet, but it will be in due course. This is very likely before the Old Firm match, and that will spell the end of Souttar’s time in Govan. Rangers will secure a profit of £1.2M. Souttar will sign a three year deal.
John Souttar Rangers exit brings an end to his Ibrox spell
Rangers fans do not really know what to think about this situation. Of course, it is well known that he was not an outstanding defender for Rangers. Ibrox Noise regularly criticised the fact that he had never truly developed beyond the player we had signed. We signed Souttar at a fairly peak age, fairly youthful, and expected him to step up to the level. The level that perhaps other Rangers great defenders of his style would.
If we think of luminaries of the past, such as the likes of Dave McPherson, David Weir and, of course, Richard Gough, these are all Scottish defenders who came to Rangers with something of a reputation and who evolved into the standard that Rangers fans expect. Souttar just did not do that. He never excelled beyond what he was signed as. Which was, a solid, decent, good last ditch block style defending defender.
His distribution was acceptable, his reading of the game was okay, but it never evolved beyond that, and this was always a disappointment for Ibrox Noise, seeing a defender that we had high hopes for just not evolving, not developing into the better level that was needed as a Rangers stopper. Probably sums up where Rangers have been for the last 15 years, but that’s neither here nor there.
Rangers defender never quite reached the expected level
As for his departure, it was of course out of the blue. Well, we knew that his exit was coming thanks to events earlier this summer, but the actual nature of those events themselves was out of the blue. Naturally, Ibrox Noise revealed our very strong source information of what actually spurred his exit.
The simple version is that he fell out with Danny Röhl and would not play for him again, only for the Rangers board to take umbrage with that and fall out with him. Consequently, he was made surplus and was exiled. Simply put, Danny Röhl and John Souttar, in the end, for whatever reason, apparently did not get on. Something happened, and then the board took umbrage at Souttar’s refusal to play for him again. Ergo, he was to leave. And now he gets that exit to Aris.
John Souttar Rangers departure follows behind the scenes fallout
Naturally, as we know, a lot of Rangers players have moved out towards Greece and Cyprus in recent years. Indeed, Ross McCausland was out there, Connor Goldson ended up out there and forgotten man José Cifuentes had a loan out there as well. Consequently, Souttar will be the latest to end up in that part of the world, even if Cyprus and Greece are, of course, two separate countries.
We do wish him the best there. Whatever the absolute truth of the reason behind his exit, the exit has been confirmed and will take place over the next few days. It’s a very sorry tale, and Rangers could probably have used his defensive attributes early in the season when we were leaking goals left, right and centre.
Rangers move on as Souttar heads for Greece
But then we can say that easily about any player who’s not in the team. They often get so much better while they’re not playing and the team is losing, even if their presence might not have made any difference to those results. Consequently, Souttar goes with our best wishes anyway, but it is just a bit strange how it all unfolded. But them’s the breaks in football, we suppose as John Souttar exits Rangers.