One criticism that I think can be levelled at the Rangers recruitment team is that, in the last few years, we haven’t signed enough players from the SPFL.
John Souttar has yet to make an impact due to injury with Scott Wright the only other senior addition, and even he is only really used as a rotational option when other, more obvious, opportunities have been missed. Lewis Ferguson, Josh Doig and Aaron Hickey have all shone in Serie A despite many not thinking that they were good enough for us.
Kevin Nisbet and Lawrence Shankland were both linked with Rangers before they made moves to Premiership clubs, now, it would cost millions to sign them. Walter Smith, Alex McLeish and even Dick Advocaat all had players from the Scottish market throughout their squads and it didn’t do them any harm which makes modern resistance a strange stance to take.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, via The Glasgow Times, Brian Laudrup reckons that Shankland does have the potential to take the next step and should be on Ross Wilson’s radar, ahead of our trip to Tynecastle on Wednesday:
“Of course, Morelos is out of contract at the end of the season. Whether with that in mind or not, Beale admitted on Saturday that he’d be looking for another striker. He followed up on Monday by saying there was a specific target he thought would be available in the summer – and confirmed it was someone operating outside of Scotland.
“Clearly, then, it isn’t Shankland, who’s foremost in his signing thoughts. But I’m interested in the idea of how the 27-year-old might handle a step into the Old Firm environment if the opportunity arose in the future.
“It’s all hypothetical, of course. But I see a lot to like about Shankland and evidence he could go on even further in his career.”
This is the problem though. At 27-years old and only halfway through his first season at Hearts, there would be no value in signing Shankland. If Hibs are looking for around £2.5million for Nisbet, Hearts will be wanting more for a player who is well protected by a long-term contract.
We need to sign these players when they show that they have potential because if they move to a Hibs, a Hearts or an Aberdeen and play well, they are already out of our price range. Clubs are no longer selling on the cheap and the performances of some of our exports has recalibrated how players are valued.
Shankland, when he was scoring goals in the lower divisions and in his early 20s was worth the punt, now, the money can be better spent elsewhere.