A quick look at the rumours and stories surrounding the greatest club in the world from the last week.
In terms of transfers, with Graham Dorrans finally signed, there’s not been a lot to discuss. No further reports on moves for McLean or Walker have surfaced, although many seem to believe they’ll still happen. There was a Twitter account linking us to Marvin Emnes, the Dutch forward currently out of contract, but the source was suspect at best.
For outgoing players, we’re still moving quite slowly. We’ve reportedly accepted an offer from Northampton for Matt Crooks. Scunthorpe are also interested. The fee would seem to be around £100k, which is going to seem very low in a few years time if he gets an injury-free run. Michael O’Halloran was most recently linked with Partick Thistle, as was Joe Dodoo not long ago. There are suggestions that O’Halloran is showing a good attitude in training but has been told he has no way back into the squad. Given the recent defeat by Tynecastle FC for our reserve team, a mixture of youths and out-of-favour players, you have to wonder just how many are showing anything near a good attitude.
No real signs of anyone else moving on just yet. There’s an impatience there, but there’s still a while to go in the transfer window. The squad will look very different come September.
We’ve finally announced the friendly against Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday 29th July, which many are looking forward to. The closed-doors games haven’t helped us at all. We didn’t look sharp in the European games, and the fans haven’t had enough exposure to the new players to help them see what we’ll be looking forward to. Even if we still had European football, I would have liked to have seen some friendlies arranged.
There’s been rumours of a friendly at Ibrox a week on Saturday. Marseille have been mentioned as potential opponents, and I was also informed that Watford were a possibility as well. We definitely need a couple of games against teams stronger than us to sharpen the team up. Whilst nothing will make up for the Progres tie, if the club were to arrange a home friendly with very favourable pricing, or even free for season ticket holders, they’d continue recent good work in terms of fan relations.
MORE RANGERS STORIES
Because of the lack of information coming from the club since we were knocked out of Europe, a lot of gaps are being filled with crazy discussions. More than one rumour of new signings being poor in training has been thrown out there. This is supposedly coming from a senior player at the club. I reckon it’s complete nonsense, personally. There’s been (quite understandably) a huge reaction to last Tuesday, so negative rumours are given even more credence than usual. Doubts around the manager and our squad are absolutely fine, but no one is served by this sort of speculation.
Something to point to which will help counter that is the recent closed-doors game against Kilmarnock, which we won 2-1 thanks to goals from Miller and Windass. A source who knows a Kilmarnock player involved was told that we beat them easily, we looked pretty good, the new players all showed something except for one (not named), and we’ll be much better this season.
Amazingly, this will be ignored as many will repeat the “poor in training” line. We even had some take the opinion of Liam Craig, the St Johnstone player, who reportedly said we would be no better this season. Not only was that a very premature judgement, but said game is available to watch via Rangers TV – make your own judgements!
Last week, we hoped for more good news to help get over the poor result. Aside from the Dorrans signing and a comment on the Big Tax Case, the club have been very quiet in the main. It’s left too many voids in terms of what to discuss. With the confirmation of friendlies, we should be able to mention more in the coming weeks.
Any stories you’ve heard you’d like us to comment on? Tweet us @rangersnewsuk with any news or thoughts!