Snog, marry, avoid or the football equivalent; sell, keep, renew.
This is the situation facing Rangers with Alfredo Morelos, Ryan Kent and Joe Aribo all into the last 12-months of their respective contracts and who better to give their opinion on, probably, the only fan who can truly claim to be in the know – David Edgar.
Writing on Heart and Hand’s Twitter feed, Edgar gave his prediction for who might stay and who might go with a couple of interesting thoughts.
My guesses:
Morelos – decent chance
Kent – 50/50
Aribo – no— Heart & Hand Podcast (@ibroxrocks) June 23, 2022
In fairness, it’s not far off our own prediction that Kent and Morelos will stay with Aribo either being sold this summer or leaving on a free transfer next year, the former being more likely given the interest from the Premier League as reported by allnigeriansoccer.com.
For Kent and Morelos I think they will stay for similar but different reasons, if that makes sense? They both clearly love the club and both would, probably, like the chance to test themselves at a higher level, however, for El Bufalo, he knows he can be the main man on European nights at Rangers and get called up for his country, he doesn’t need to move plus, he is idolised here, why would he jeopardise that?
As for Kent, he has a similar level of adulation but he has found a fan base that accepts him for who he is and appreciates what he does rather than criticise him for what he doesn’t do. Yes, he should score more goals but there is far much more to his game to that, I’m just not sure other fans would accept that from a winger – Kent, in short, knows that he has a good thing.
The three contracts are a sideshow to everything else that will happen this window, we will bring players in but getting clarity on the futures of these key players is just as important, we’ll soon find out if Edgar’s source, sorry, opinion, is right…