If you’re a club operating on a budget like Rangers’, then there are a few different approaches you can take in the transfer market. You can prioritise youth and potential; the old ‘sign low, sell high’ policy perfected in recent years by the likes of Ajax, RB Leipzig and, regrettably, Old Firm rivals Celtic.
Another approach, and one Rangers have seen both the benefits and the pitfalls of, revolves around bringing in players who have fallen on hard times, offering fresh starts to those who’s reputations and price-tags have fallen to such an extent that they are suddenly ‘gettable’ for clubs in the Scottish Premiership.
With all due respect to the game north of the border, it’s hard to imagine that Sam Lammers would have ended up at Ibrox had he built on the potential which earned him that £9 million move from PSV to Atalanta. Ditto Abdallah Sima, once linked with Man United and Arsenal and now on loan at The Gers after struggling for opportunities at Brighton and Hove Albion.
Reports from Daily Mail journalist Tom Collomosse linking Rangers with Coventry City’s Callum O’Hare, meanwhile, are a little reminiscent of the deal which brought Todd Cantwell to Glasgow during the winter of 2023.
Could Rangers get another Todd Cantwell-like deal
Cantwell, snapped up for just £1.5 million with his Norwich City contract expiring at the end of that campaign, had been linked with £40 million moves to the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City on the back of a fine debut season in England’s Premier League in 2019/20.
O’Hare might not have scaled such heights – Cantwell scored against Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal and in a famous 3-2 win over Man City that season – but, had things worked out differently, Coventry’s snake-hipped number ten would surely have been handed his chance on the top-flight stage by now.
According to The Telegraph, Tottenham Hotspur scouted O’Hare six months before Cantwell joined Rangers. Fulham were also credited with an interest. Ditto Burnley, Vincent Kompany’s side targeting the £10 million-rated former Aston Villa starlet before cruising to the Championship title that very same season.
O’Hare would go on to start only eight games that campaign due to injury. A cruciate ligament tear kept him out for ten months, only making his return last October.
Now, at a time in which his former Coventry team-mate Viktor Gyokeres is emerging as one of the finest strikers in Europe – closing in on 40 goals during a stunning campaign which justifies the £86 million release clause placed in his Sporting Lisbon contract – O’Hare looks destined to leave the Sky Blues on a free transfer when his contract expires in July.
Philippe Clement’s side eye Callum O’Hare
There is, Collomosse writes on X, interest from clubs in La Liga, as well as north of the border. Rangers are keen, as are title-rivals Celtic. Suddenly, a player who was valued at £10 million and on the radar of clubs like Tottenham less than two years ago could conceivably be on his way to Ibrox for nothing.
Now, Rangers have found out first hand that there are both risks and potential rewards involved when targeting players who, for whatever reason – be it a loss of form like Cantwell and Lammers or injuries like with O’Hare – have seen their reputations take a hit.
The risk is that, like with Lammers, years of poor form and bruised confidence prove difficult to recover from. The rewards, however, can be summed up by Cantwell’s role in an enthralling title race. Cantwell has, throughout much of this campaign, looked like a player simply above the level when it comes to Scottish football.
And the good news with regards to O’Hare is that, having scored nine goals while assisting four more following his return to action – hailed by Jack Grealish after rediscovering the twinkle-toed footwork which once created comparisons between the two Villa graduates – the Rangers target appears to be picking up where he left off before that ACL rupture.
