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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Christopher Jack

Rangers contract talks status revealed as Michael Beale makes Ibrox calls

RANGERS have yet to put contracts on the table for any of their first team stars who are now in the final months of their Ibrox deals.

The futures of several players - including Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos - are up in the air at present as boss Michael Beale plans for his first full term in charge.

Allan McGregor is expected to retire at the end of the campaign but the likes of Ryan Jack and Scott Arfield are still awaiting official offers to determine their futures.

Beale said: “All the players that are out of contract – no one has been offered one. Not one player has had an offer put to them.

"No one has had an discussion where we’ve said, ‘we’ll offer you this and this’. Why? When I came in it was a little bit uncertain on one or two and I wanted to see the season through.

"That doesn’t mean I haven’t spoken to the players. At the moment they’re focused, working hard and getting on with it.

"But we’ve not formally made an offer to any of the players who are out of contact because I want to see certain things against certain opponents at certain levels to make sure they can be a part of it going forward. That’s where we’re at.

“I’ve made the decisions I want to make.”

Beale started his rebuilding of the squad he inherited at Ibrox by securing the services of Todd Cantwell and Nicolas Raskin during the January transfer window.

A handful of players are expected to leave in the coming months and that process was started this week after James Sands saw his loan cut short and returned to New York City FC after a year in Glasgow.

Beale said: “James came to me about four weeks ago and asked if there was a possibility he could go back. He saw that he was going to find playing time difficult.

"He’s a midfielder who’s had to play predominantly at centre back. I didn’t see me playing a loan player over one or two who are Rangers players and will be Rangers players going forward.

"We had an honest conversation and I asked him to stay until the cup final because Connor Goldson and Ben Davies were our only centre backs and if we had any issues James would need to play.

"We agreed to that and that’s why he wasn’t in the squad at the weekend as ultimately he wasn’t going to be here.”

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