On Wednesday afternoon, Rangers announced the pre-contract signing of Jake Hastie.
He will join the Gers on a four-year deal in June.
Director of Football, Mark Allen, accompanied the announcement with a statement.
“We are delighted to add such a talented and young Scottish player to our team for next season,” he told the club’s website.
‘We are committed to improving the strength of our squad and this is part of that process. There will be some departures and we hope for a few arrivals which will add greater quality.”
He takes the opportunity to emphasise what everyone already knew. Hastie is both young (21) and Scotland qualified.
Presumably, under instruction, the social media team even mentioned the Scottish FA account in their tweet.
It’s possible that this hints at new transfer priorities for Rangers.
Last summer, the recruitment team looked to Europe for new players. Borna Barisic, Eros Grezda, and Nikola Katic are examples of that. However, you could only really argue a case for Katic as a first season success.
Furthermore, it likely came as an embarrassment to the club that no Gers were named in the latest Scottish National team squads.
Within that context, perhaps there’s been a shift in thinking.
Another Scot, Greg Stewart, is reportedly heading to Ibrox [
The Gers have also been linked with a swoop for 22-year-old Hearts centre-back and Scotland international, John Souttar [
Going forward then, priorities appear to have shifted towards bringing in Scottish, or at least British talent.
One thing’s for sure, we’ll find out a lot more about the club’s transfer ambitions, over the coming months.
