Let’s have a look at the rumours and news surrounding Rangers this week.
First off, the transfer move that’s somehow managed to overtake the Dorrans signing as Saga of the Summer; our proposed move for Jamie Walker. The player has now been dropped by Hearts as he’s “had his head turned”. With their managerial situation changing this week, I’d imagine any proposed move will be delayed a little, but you have to ask why they’re bothering to hold on at the moment. He’s costing them money at a time when they’ll need cash and players who are committed to the cause.
It seems pretty obvious that Hearts are resigned to losing him. As such, these moves are purely made to get the fans to turn against the player rather than the club. It’s somewhat irresponsible behaviour from Hearts, but it does seem a pretty common practice in football these days sadly.
There were rumours of Rangers being interested in signing Max Power from Wigan. I don’t think another midfielder should be our focus unless we’re losing players we aren’t aware of, but I’d sign him purely to sing the Homer Simpson song at Ibrox.
As discussed last week, the rumoured move for Naismith hasn’t went away. It was described as inevitable by some last week with good sources, but there’s been little by way of development since.
Michael O’Halloran has moved on loan to St Johnstone until January. We were never going to be able to sell him for a decent fee, with any interested clubs being unable to pay his wages. The best chance we have of a return on him is for him to have a good season (I’d imagine the loan will be extended) with St Johnstone and get some interest that way.
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At the moment, players like Kiernan, Dodoo and Forrester are still at the club, despite being clearly not wanted. Nothing seems to be happening with them just now. There were media reports that Sunderland were interested in signing Waghorn. I believe he’s a Sunderland fan, so that may be a move he’d like if true.
There were a couple of tenuous rumours of outgoings during the week. One was that Rossiter wishes to leave, which I’m told is nonsense but could be at least believable. The second was that Miller had spoken to Hibs about a move. That one is pretty hard to imagine at all, given his involvement in pre-season and the way we moved on McKay when he made it clear he was looking for a move.
With the focus being the upcoming league and cup games, it’s likely that transfer activity in and out will slow down until nearer the end of the month. Now that Mark Allen has started his role as Director of Football, we’ll be working to clarify his involvement in such things, so that will also have an effect.
Outwith transfer news, it’s been a somewhat normal week. The usual media nonsense with regards songs or daft tweets is the norm, and we’ll never get rid of that. The latest situation with the tweet to Scott Brown is a very strange one, which I’d hope we get developments on in terms of identifying the perpetrator. Even if it’s not made public, the way that a seemingly unused account was involved, then a whole new account opened to highlight it, feels very suspicious. The tweet was a shocker, but unless there’s definitive proof of who it came from, any sort of reaction is premature.
We’ve not had any training pictures this week so far at the time of writing, which would help to allay some fears around Tavernier’s injury or Rossiter’s squad status. There’s also been a fair amount of discussion surrounding Pena and his fitness due to his limited involvement against Marseille and Sheffield Wednesday. Given the last few weeks, a lot of that is just looking for things to be negative about.
We’ve had a good finish to our pre-season and should be excited by the prospect of Sunday away to Motherwell. Our match preview will follow tomorrow with a more detailed look at both sides and the expectations surrounding the match.
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