Rangers used to go shopping in the transfer market with blank cheques when Walter Smith and Dick Advocaat were in charge during the late nineties and early noughties, now though, it appears that we are shopping without a cheque book at all.
No sooner than the Scottish Premiership been won and Celtic’s Unbeaten Run brought to an end, Steven Gerrard was being linked with players at home and abroad but since Ross Wilson arrived as the Sporting Director, very little escapes from Auchenhowie and on to the back pages of the Scottish press.
Preparations for next season have already begun, as early as January we had Scott Wright, Jack Simpson and Nnamdi Ofoborh signed up on pre-contract agreements, only the latter not arriving ahead of schedule.
We have also seen experienced campaigners and a large part of the spine commit to next season with Allan McGregor, James Tavernier, Leon Balogun and Steven Davis all extending their stays – Connor Goldson surely has to be next.
With this in mind, Rangers transfer strategy will largely be about fine tuning, Fashion Sakala of Oostende is rumoured to be close to agreeing a free transfer, following future team-mates on social media all but confirms this nowadays.
He is likely to replace the outgoing Jordan Jones and Brandon Barker who have done well at their respective loan clubs, that should see us get an extra few pound in the bank balance for players deemed surplus to requirements.
Defensively we are set unless reports that we are to sell Filip Helander are to be believed, links with Elfsborg’s Joseph Okumu and Vitesse Arnhem’s Danilho Doekhi could become more substantial if the big Swede does depart, taking his unbeaten league record with him in the process.
Up front Alfredo Morelos could yet stay for a crack at the Champions League, however, anything over and above his £20million valuation would be very hard to turn down, hence the reason Britt Assombalonga is said to be close to agreeing his own pre-contract move to Ibrox.
What we do need though is to address the middle of midfield; Steven Davis is incredible but is 36-years old, Scott Arfield is not far behind him, Bongani Zungu hasn’t done enough to merit splashing out on the £2.7m option-to-buy clause agreed with Amiens, Glen Kamara has been attracting a lot of interest this season and Ryan Jack won’t be back until pre-season training with no guarantee that he is going to be the same player.
The already mentioned Bournemouth midfielder Ofoborh is on his way and I’d like to see him being joined by two other players who will soon be without a club, and two we have been linked with for some time – Allan Campbell of Motherwell and John Lundstram of Sheffield United.
A Rangers midfielder has to be able to do everything. Campbell and Lundstram fit this profile of modern midfielder who can contribute to attacks but also have the work rate and desire to cover full-backs - a much needed quality when playing under Gerrard.
The difference is that Lundstram could immediately improve our midfield whereas Campbell would be a project, Ryan Jack wasn’t the finished article when he arrived from Aberdeen and he is now a far better and more complete player.
If we can make substantial profits on players that depart whilst signing replacements for free then it’s very much a case of “job done” with regards to our much talked about transfer model, as long as our team isn’t weaker as a result – over to you Mr Wilson.