Another week goes by and it's safe to say there's been mounting evidence people are becoming a touch more impatient over Rangers' transfer strategy. By all accounts, progress has been made but it’s slow and trying to meet disgruntlement with reason is becoming more fraught than normal.
The argument goes: 'We have millions from Nathan Paterson, millions from Steven Gerrard, millions from Europe, the board are just not being ambitious and just taking all the money from the fans’ It’s not that simple, unfortunately.
Jake Hastie left for England and along with Cedric Itten's departure earlier in the window, that represents a decent start to departures this window. There may be another half dozen and possibly a ‘big’ exit before we can release enough funds to bring in the quality we want.
Potentially there’s a few reasons for this, the first being the squad is bloated and wage bill is too high for our return. Look at the centre back position for example - Connor Goldson, John Souttar, Filip Helander, Leon King, Niko Katic, Jack Simpson, James Sands and Calvin Bassey. That is heavy by two or even three players and maybe £25k a week drained by those surplus to requirements in Simpson and Katic, while Helander hasn't properly delivered value because of injury. That situation is relevant throughout the squad.
Now I’ll draw your attention to the first point of reference I saw on social media which caught my attention and has relevance to all this. Miles Jacobson of Football Manager series fame spoke of the general transfer situation in the European game where the big clubs are all buying from each other. He reckons the market of £2-10m is now dead and the players are holding all the power, especially those with dwindling contracts knowing they can get a bigger signing-on fee by holding out until the end of their deals.
That takes us nicely to Rangers and social media demands that we throw money at linked Norwegian striker Erik Botheim. In line with what Miles suggested, that player's basic demands are reportedly £2m for signing a contract and £45k a week. That’s a deal, over four or five years, which costs well over £10m and I don’t think we can compete with that. It’s not our market.
Now this brings me to the second thing I noticed online which is also very relevant to where we are. Rangers Podcaster Andy McGowan, who comes from a financial background, spoke of the club's need to comply with the new UEFA financial sustainability regulations. Rangers have to be ready to meet a ‘Squad cost ratio’ of 70 percent against income.
The more we bring in, the more room we will have to manoeuvre. Now we are currently comfortable, but this is where we have to be realistic. We can’t throw £45-50k a week at a Bosman no matter how decent we have decided he may be. Rangers need to be a team that finds a gem and here’s where Antonio Colak comes in.
Cedric Itten left for £1.5m and, give or take a few hundred thousand, he will come in at more or less the same cost. The difference being he will add more to the squad and more options to our frontline. He will bring numbers and most of our reference will come from what we saw against us. Ask yourself how many strikers have mugged us the way he did last August? Colak can finish and he brings something we don’t have.
What we must do is ensure that anyone we have is maximising their value and if we are honest then a few big earners aren’t doing that. Kemar Roofe and Helander being unavailable so often isn’t their fault, but it’s problematic because our big earners must be contributing every week.
The market has changed and I suppose what I am saying is it isn’t as easy as it being Rangers' fault. Even PAOK won’t sell until they find a replacement for Colak and this highlights how difficult it currently is - they too have to be cautious.
So these are things we possibly don’t consider when we look at the landscape. But Rangers will spend money, I remain sure of that. We just might need to see what happens with a Joe Aribo or a Glen Kamara first.
To those being highly critical, maybe this board are just safeguarding our future and ensuring we don’t make the same mistakes as before. Maybe we are just taking our time to ensure our moves are judicious. I also accept that maybe people have a point and we ARE being overcautious. Some will say I’m finding excuses for a boardroom who are dragging their heels and not being cost-effective with a bloated squad in the first place. I suppose it depends on where your truth is.
Mine lies somewhere in between these poles. I’d lose ten from this squad including two or three big names who aren’t effectively contributing and bring in three who could. That might just be the freshening up we all predicted we needed but I know it’s never that simple.
The truth never hides. Excuses or relevant facts? We will find out soon enough - the Champions League is merely six weeks away.
