When Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne left Rangers, they weren’t replaced. Neither was Ally McCoist. Replacing club legends is never an easy task for a recruitment team but there is one position where we have usually got it right.
In my lifetime, we have gone from Chris Woods to Andy Goram to Stefan Klos to Allan McGregor up until 2012, there were a couple of detours in between but Lionel Charbonnier (before his injury) and Ronald Watereus provided more than adequate cover when Klos was unavailable through injury. The less said about Lionel Letizi the better though.
It’s a position that Ross Wilson has to get right and spending money isn’t always a guarantee for success but that’s what he will have to do if he wants to secure who looks like his current first choice.
Angus Gunn has been heavily linked in the last few days and the Norwich City stopper could relish the chance to play for a big club after experiencing life at yo-yo teams like Stoke City and Southampton too. As a former England Under-21 international, Gunn has the potential to play at a higher level and has recently been touted for a Scotland call up to replace Craig Gordon as the country’s long-term number one, following in his father’s footsteps.
Gunn, who spent most of his formative years in Manchester City’s academy cost Southampton £13.5million in 2018 before rejoining his childhood club on a contract until 2025 for a fee in the region of £5m.
Speaking to GiveMeSport, transfer journalist Dean Jones has backed the move and has claimed that Rangers recruitment team is impressed with what the 6ft 5inch keeper could bring to the club:
“There are definitely one or two people within the setup that really do believe that he would be a good asset for the club going forward.
“They think he could lift himself to be a really good player for Rangers.”
There are three markets I believe that we are looking at for a keeper; free transfer, which allows us to potentially sign a better player than we could normally afford, the up and coming market where we look further afield for younger players about to take the next big step in their career or, established players who have proven what they can do in the past but their clubs have maybe dropped down a level.
Gunn ticks a lot of boxes, he is a good age with elite level experience and a solid reputation, he also has the attributes that we should be looking for in a keeper. Is he the next number one in a long line of legends? We’ll need to wait and see.