Rangers should have signed Lawrence Shankland, Kevin Nisbet or Kevin van Veen this summer, in the eyes of Kris Boyd.
The club’s summer transfer business is coming under the microscope following the sacking of Michael Beale.
Rangers backed Beale over the summer transfer window with millions spent on improving the squad – or at least, that was the plan.
The Gers invested in attacking players like Danilo, Cyriel Dessers and Sam Lammers all coming in but with limited results.
That outlay doesn’t look too smart at the moment and Kris Boyd thinks Rangers should have looked closer to home.
Kris Boyd thinks Rangers should have signed Kevin van Veen
Boyd has been speaking to The Scottish Sun after Beale’s exit and turned his attention to the club’s transfer business.
The former Rangers hitman suggests that Beale needed to focus on signing the best players from the Scottish Premiership.
Boyd feels that Beale thought he knew better but was proven wrong with his foreign imports struggling to settle in Scotland.
Boyd highlighted three strikers who would have been better additions for Rangers; Lawrence Shankland, Kevin Nisbet and Kevin van Veen.
Ryan Porteous is again mentioned after the defender left Hibernian for Watford earlier this year, with Boyd feeling that Rangers missed a trick.
“People go on about building a squad good enough to compete in Europe. But that’s secondary to putting a team on the park good enough to win the Premiership,” said Boyd.
“The likes of Lawrence Shankland, Kevin Nisbet, Kevin van Veen would have been far, far better strikers than the ones brought in. Ryan Porteous was another player I said Rangers should have signed. Players who know what Scottish football is about and would have hit the ground running at the start of the season.”
“Rangers have always been good at that down the years, signing the best players from other Scottish clubs. But Beale’s attitude was that he knew better. And he didn’t,” he added.
Kevin van Veen wouldn’t have excited Rangers fans
The Shankland rumours have been around for a long time now and probably aren’t going away any time soon.
Nisbet came back strongly after injury but whether he would have really moved the needle for Rangers is up for debate.
Then we come to Van Veen, who left Motherwell for a move to Dutch second-tier side FC Groningen.
Yes, Van Veen scored regularly for Motherwell with 29 goals in all competitions last season.
The Dutchman is 32 though and that he is now playing in the Dutch second tier kind of sums up that he isn’t really Rangers quality.
We can understand Boyd’s point here; Rangers have gone away from signing top Scottish Premiership players and have missed out on some quality in the process.
Van Veen maybe isn’t the absolute best example though and few Rangers fans would have been excited to see him sign over the summer.
