There is a theory that Rangers need to spend more money to catch up with Celtic, they don’t, they just need to spend it better.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, however, a £4m outlay on Oscar Cortes and £6m on Danilo hasn’t at the time of writing been good value for money.
In Cortes, Rangers signed a player fresh from impressive showings at the Under-20 Copa America and Under-20 World Cup, the potential justified the fee.
It was a similar story with Danilo who has all the attributes needed to be a top striker and was never fit before he moved to Ibrox.
Injuries and fitness problems mean that neither have fulfilled their potential or justified their transfer fees with Richard Foster suggesting that Rangers have been robbed.
Richard Foster on Rangers £4m fee for Oscar Cortes
Speaking on the Go Radio Football Show, the former Rangers full-back was asked specifically by host Paul Cooney about the £4m fee for Cortes:
“I’m going to pay 40 quid. I’ve never seen him. And obviously, you know, Barry Ferguson is saying that he needs to do more to get in the team and that’s the bit.
“You know, when you know that they’re going to have to sign you, where’s your incentive apart from just your pride as a football player, but where’s your incentive to go and do more to get in the team?
“So, you’re looking at that and before they even have a manager, before they’ve even, before the technical director of whatever his title is starts, they’re going to need to find 4 million quid for a player who’s barely played and looked miles off it when he has.
“Which is probably understandable because of lack of game time, but you know, the only place you can show a manager how good you can be is in training if you’re not playing and he clearly hasn’t done that, as Barry speaks about him and Danilo, but strange situation last season and it’s just, you know, Rangers just don’t make it easy for themselves a lot of the time and that’s probably the worrying thing if you’re a fan.”
Is Ferguson right not to play Danilo and Oscar Cortes?
Barry Ferguson suggested that both Danilo and Cortes could see game time in the last three games of the season.
With no chance of being the next Rangers manager, there is no pressure to get results and he should be looking at the bigger picture.
There is another angle though.
What is the point of playing Danilo or Cortes?
At best, they score a couple of goals and serve a reminder of what they are capable of, at worst, they get injured and miss pre-season training, again.
Both are injury free and fully fit, they maybe aren’t match fit, but that is irrelevant now.
The priority now is next season and making sure that the £10m investment is ready for the first day of pre-season with the hope that they can be like the proverbial new players Rangers need.
