As Nils Koppen readies a trip to the TransferRoom summit in Italy, Rangers fans will keeping a close eye on the club’s transfer dealings in the aftermath.
With the club already taking a slice out the summer budget with the £4.5m signing of Mohamed Diomande, all eyes are on who the recruitment team have an eye on this summer.
Much of this may well depend on how this season ends – Rangers are still in three competitions, including the Europa League, with qualification for the new-look Champions League very much in the balance.
But at the very least the presence of Nils Koppen at the event in Rome is an intimation that Rangers are ready and willing to do transfer business this summer and it’s an exciting prospect for supporters.
Nils Koppen has growing Rangers transfer agenda
Nils Koppen’s presence at the TransferRoom Summit is interesting for a number of reasons, not least because there are outstanding transfer situations to be settled within Ibrox.
Abdallah Sima, Fabio Silva, and Oscar Cortes are all on very different loan deals which are due to expire in the summer.
All have intimated their interest in staying in Glasgow but all are realistically out of the Ibrox club’s price range.
What does that mean? Well either Rangers find a way to extend the deals of all three players, or structure the transfers in such a way it’s affordable to the club.
A permanent move for Fabio Silva is a no-go – even if he’s interested in sticking around for a little while longer – whilst Oscar Cortes is recovering from a “severe” injury problem and might benefit from an extended loan-to-buy.
Abdallah Sima, who is out of contract next summer at Brighton and has been out for the last two months due to an injury, also cost the Premier League side over £6m back in 2021 and he’s yet to play a game for them.
Beyond these three players, Rangers also have a host of players out of contract in the summer with only one or two of them heading for new deals as things stand.
The likes of Borna Barisic, whose agent will also be in Italy next week, Ryan Jack, who is currently injured, and Kemar Roofe, who is yet to prove his fitness, are all high earners who could be moving on.
TransferRoom summit points to proactive Gers
All of this points to a busy but exciting summer at Rangers and it’s encouraging to see Nils Koppen taking a forward-thinking approach to the window.
The Ibrox side will want to be best placed to get business done and done early as Philippe Clement looks to continuing building a winning Rangers team.
Remarkably, should things go better than we ever dreamed back in October, the Belgian might be building on an incredible four trophies although that’s some way away as things stand.
But what the club’s upturn in recent form points to is that no matter how the next transfer period goes, any new players will be coming into a club and environment which is proving it can and will make players better.
Not only that, but it’s an atmosphere which few want to leave.
