A look at the rumours of the week so far (for clarity, this is being put together on Wednesday night – I have a feeling we may see some announcements on Thursday…) from a Rangers perspective.
I should start with something of a retraction. My article yesterday suggested Forrester had been suspended. It seems he’s just been given a couple of weeks to find another club. It’s as close to suspended as you get, but it wasn’t as official as that. It seems the Garner deal to Ipswich is definitely done, and there was no sign of him in the training pictures from Wednesday.
Last week, I mentioned some of the crazier rumours. For some reason, the Nani rumour came back up again during the week. There was also a link to Miguel Layun from Porto. Neither player is going to be at Rangers, and I think we all know that.
We’ve been linked with Jamie Walker for a while now, and this week it was reported that we’d made an initial offer which was rejected. I think he’ll be signed before the summer window is closed, but I don’t believe we’ll look to get him in really early unless the deal suits us.
Some rumours suggest the fee for Dorrans has been agreed, and it’ll just be a case of him flying back from Vegas to get the medical done. As I’ve said earlier, he’s a player I really want us to sign.
Carlos Pena, Eduardo Herrera and Alfredo Morelos are all just waiting on official confirmation via work permits and visas. Hopefully they’ll all be in before the deadline to name our European squad for the first round on Monday.
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In terms of outgoings, the only real stories we’ve had are some clubs linked to Josh Windass. I think Scunthorpe will try to sign Matt Crooks, but his injury will hold everything up just now. It’s felt like a slow start to moving players on, but that’s only because we’ve done so much business so early ourselves. Many won’t be away until near the end of August no doubt.
The biggest rumour of the week, though, was that we’ve identified Mark Allen from Manchester City as the Director of Football. Reports from a few sources are suggesting the deal is done, although at the time of writing there’s been nothing official. Some are concerned that his previous role was with the youth academy at Man City, given the perceived responsibility of the role. I suspect he’s been identified as someone who understands how to build a structured approach at every level of the club, and is ready to make the step up as such. He’s got huge business experience as well, and will bring a more balanced view that could be of use. The best part of his appointment (if it goes through) is that we didn’t panic when we lost out on the initial targets. We’ve found someone of a similar ilk and approach, and the board should be commended for that.
We also saw the announcement that 32 Red will continue to be our sponsor. That just fuels the rumours around a new retail deal. Many seem convinced we’ll have an announcement on that by the end of the month. Very much a “watch this space” scenario.
Winner of the strangest rumour of the week was the story involving Aissa Mandi of Real Betis. It seems someone edited his Wikipedia page to suggest he had signed for us, and one of Scotland’s top sports reporters put out a tweet about it before deleting it later. Someone was clearly having some fun.
Anything I’ve missed? Any stories you’ve heard you’d love to share? Tweet us @rangersnewsuk and we’ll be happy to discuss!