Philippe Clement and Nils Koppen are set to have a busy summer for Rangers in the transfer market with an overhaul still required.
As many as 10 players could leave, with six senior players out of contract too, the Gers boss and his recruitment director will have plenty of space on the wage bill to work with.
Scouting and recruitment is a never-ending process and it appears as if Nils Koppen is already putting the hard work in as he looks to build a better and more balanced Rangers squad.
Nils Kopped begins Rangers recruitment plan
There have been a few reports already about players that the Light Blues are watching.
Jhon Arias, the Colombian winger currently at Fluminense is one, as is Luca Langoni.
Two forwards at big South American clubs who would instantly upgrade the forward line, however, they would both cost a lot of money too.
Left-back Jefte of APOEL looks set to be a ‘Will he? Won’t he?’ saga with a replacement for Borna Barisic likely to be a priority.
Eduard Spertsyan, at an estimated £13m might well be a player we are watching, but at that price, we might, just, miss out.
Speaking at the regular Rangers Fans’ Forum held at New Edmiston House, the Four Lads Had a Dream blog provided a breakdown of what was covered with Creag Robertson, the director of football operations providing an update on the summer transfer plans.
“Recruitment is front and centre of the plans, Nils Koppen working hard and very active in the market right now. Succession planning, player contracts and player recruitment is vital for us.
“Nils has changed the structure and set up of the recruitment and that is going very well
“A number of targets have already been identified and our intention is to bring in players.”
Identifying targets is only half the job
It’s one thing identifying targets, it’s another entirely getting them to the club.
As we learned last year, Champions League qualification won’t determine the budget and Philippe Clement will know what he has available to make this Rangers team his own.
He wants younger, hungrier and more dynamic players, and ones that can be developed and sold to improve the player trading model rather than one where half a team is leaving for free.
As already mentioned, there will be a lot of room on the wage bill with so many senior players leaving, but if the likes of Sam Lammers and others who aren’t contributing enough can be sold, the gaffer will have more money to spend.
Having said that, the way that he is playing for Utrecht, we should maybe consider giving Lammers the number nine shirt!
Ironically, we could maybe even end up getting more than we paid for a player who just never seemed comfortable in front of a packed Ibrox.
Last summer there were more misses than hits, but with a competent director of recruitment in charge and already working behind the scenes we should avoid a repeat of last summer’s disjointed efforts to build a title winning squad.
