Other than the summer long festival of football that is the European Championships where we will see some of the continent’s finest players – and Stephen O’Donnell – the names being linked with moves to Ibrox are something to get excited about.
Granted, we might not have seen them at first hand or played against them in the Europa League to know much about them, but this is a good thing, getting players before they become famous and become multi-million pound players is key to us becoming self-sufficient.
We’ve seen the likes of Joey Veerman and Gustavo Hamer linked for decent money but last week we saw Salih Ozcan and now Abdou Harroui getting their names added to an ever expanding list of potential targets.
Rangers were in attendance at the Germany v Netherlands semi-final of the Under-21 European Championships this week and both Ozcan and Harroui – rated at over £3million – were on display with the Koln midfielder coming out on top, they have similar qualities in that they can play as a 6 or an 8 but, with the latter still having a year to run on his Sparta Rotterdam contract, it could be that finances dictate any move.
This is exactly the sort of player we should be looking to fit into our transfer model, especially if we can get them on pre-contract deals or for reduced fees, dangling the carrot of the Champions League plus being on the door step of the Premier League gives us a decent chance when trying to lure promising youngsters to the club.
At the very least, seeing us linked with these players should give us some comfort, our scouting and recruitment department are now fully functioning and can cast their nets wider than domestic shores – when you see some of the price tags being mentioned for the likes of Lewis Ferguson and Kevin Nisbet, this is no bad thing.