Bruno Alves is on the verge of joining Serie A side Parma this summer, just a year after arriving as a big name signing at Ibrox. The Rangers stopper still has to complete a medical in Italy, but the deal is set to go through imminently.
That’s according to The Scottish Sun, who report that the club will save around £28,000-a-week on wages when he departs.
That’s a huge saving, especially in the midst of a Steven Gerrard rebuild. That kind of saving could be the difference between signing one or two quality first team signings and not.
Alves is undoubtedly a player with a lot of quality and unmatched experience, but his injury problems and underwhelming performances over the last 12 months, coupled with his high wages, have made him more of a burden than an asset.
With the manager wasting no time in signing the likes of Connor Goldson and Nikola Katic this summer, it was always like Alves would fall down the pecking order and there’s simply not enough cash at the club to justify spending that kind of wage on a substitute.
It may have been a risk worth taking, but sadly it’s a move that just didn’t work out and after the departure of Pedro Caixinha the writing was always on the wall with regards to Alves’ Ibrox future.
The signing model going forward should be either signing first team ready players in their prime, or players with a significant potential and hopefully the days of signing past it stars like the 36-year-old are over.
Thankfully, so far, that’s something that Gerrard seems to agree with.