Rangers keep their transfer cards incredibly close to their chest nowadays and very little makes it’s way into the mainstream media in Scotland, unless, something has been divulged in a potential target’s homeland.
This happened on Friday when Heerenveen skipper Henk Veerman (no relation!) name dropped the Light Blues as a potential destination for his team-mate, as reported by Voetbal Primeur, a Dutch newspaper:
“I’ve read things about Atalanta, Rangers, PSV, Ajax and AZ.
“I expect him to go to one of those clubs. I also think that Joey will add value for any club in the Netherlands.
”If things change enormously (at the club). That is a serious problem for me.”
Veerman is genuinely a “next level” signing and has been linked before, the type of player that Michael Beale has spoken about before, if we are to compete in the Champions League, we need players who are better in and out of possession, especially in midfield where games can be won and lost.
Initially it was believed that PSV we favourites for his signature but they have since ruled themselves out of the running outing his price tag – around £8.5million – as being to expensive for them.
Ross Wilson is good at what he does, there is no doubting that, but we can’t get every player we need/want on a free transfer or pre-contract, there will has to be players, like Veerman and Ryan Kent, who will cost a lot of money but the flip side is that they will also make a lot of money.
Replacing quality with quality is also essential, when Celtic lost Moussa Dembele, they bought Odsonne Edouard, it was for a club record transfer fee but they were still some £10m to the good, if Ianis Hagi or Glen Kamara leave for more than £10m, signing Veerman would still leave us better off.
It’s going to be a fascinating window but to see us linked with players of this quality is reassuring, we aren’t resting on our laurels – better never stops and all that.