A month on from the confirmation of his transfer request, the reasons behind the Rangers man’s desire to leave have remained a little mysterious.
Philippe Clement said, after exiling Todd Cantwell from the first-team picture, that the £1.5 million signing from Norwich City was keen on ‘another challenge’.
But, the question is, why? Cantwell had only spent one full season at Rangers when he informed the manager of his desire to leave.
And it’s not as if he was finding game time hard to come by either. The one-time Liverpool target played 44 games across all competitions and – with eight goals and seven assists – Cantwell had established himself as one of the more productive attacking options at Clement’s disposal despite criticism from a few pundits.
Unlike with some of Rangers’ other exit-linked players, however, offers appear to have been few and far between.
Philippe Clement addresses Todd Cantwell’s Rangers saga
Links with a Trabzonspor side who have already snapped up Borna Barisic and John Lundstram this summer have gone cold.
And with Cantwell still in the building, Rangers’ hopes of bringing in further reinforcements – Tiago Gouveia and Josip Brekalo are among those to be mentioned this week – are stuck on pause for the time being.
“If people leave, we need other people. In it is clear. Otherwise, we’re short in that position,” Clement said during Friday’s press conference, broadcast on Rangers’ YouTube channel.
“I don’t know which bids come in. I really don’t know, because I’m not interested in that. I’m busy with the squad, with the team.
“There’s no reason for me to know every bid that comes in for a player or for what amount, because I’m not at the end the one who makes the decisions about the money in the club.”
Clement, for the first time since that late-July bombshell, has finally provided a glimpse into Cantwell’s mind.
Seemingly unsettled north of the border, the Norfolk-born playmaker is not just driven by a desire to leave Rangers but by a desire to leave Scotland as a whole.
Cantwell wants to leave Scotland
“Todd made his own opinion about things, why he doesn’t want to stay in Scotland,” the former Monaco boss explains. “And I don’t speak only about Rangers. It’s more Scotland, why he wanted to leave.
“I want to talk about players who are now busy for Rangers. (I will talk about the others) after the transfer period, on the 1st and 2nd of September.
“We have an important game against Ross County tomorrow. I’m focused on players who are training, who are working hard to get those results. I’m not going to go into all the rumours, all the things, all the fuss because I’m not focused on that.
“I’m busy with the squad, to make the squad better, together with the board, with the recruitment team. I’m busy with the players who are in the building. I want that we continue talking about that.”
While things remain quiet around Cantwell, Rapid Bucharest this week opened up on their desire to bring the similarly out-of-favour Ianis Hagi back to Romania.
Blackburn manager John Eustace, meanwhile, has confirmed that Rabbi Matondo is on Rovers’ radar.
