Van Bronckhorst will be “desperate” as Gers start summer slowly

Some fans love the summer transfer window, others hate it. The constant speculation, some of which might not even be true, can be tiring, it’s even worse when a deal looks to be done and yet there is still no announcement from the club.

This is the situation we find ourselves in with Antonio Colak, the PAOK Salonika striker who is said to have agreed personal terms on a move to Rangers with a transfer fee also reported to have been finalised.

Writing in his Daily Record column, former Gers skipper Barry Ferguson feels former team-mate Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s pain who he feels will be pressing to get he deal done as soon as possible to get the Croatian international to join up with his squad as soon as possible:

“Since word got out that Rangers were looking at him, I’ve watched a lot of footage of him and, yes, he looks the part.

“He looks like a striker who would be a right handful to play against because of his movement and physicality and he’s certainly got an eye for goal.

“I’m sure Giovanni will be desperate to get this deal over the line as quickly as possible because time is marching on and the season is only four weeks away.

“It’ll be frustrating for Gio as, in an ideal world, you want your new players signed and sealed to be part of the group for the first day of pre-season. Any new player needs time to get used to his surroundings and get integrated into the squad.

“As a manager, you have to learn to be patient because there are a lot of moving parts to getting these deals done in terms of the negotiations over a fee and then haggling with agents. It all takes time.

“But, from Gio’s perspective, he’ll want it all finalised yesterday and I’m sure he’ll be stressing that to the guys upstairs.

“It’s still early in the transfer window but if they get Colak done soon, having already added John Souttar, then things will be starting to take shape.”

Unlike in previous seasons, the only good thing this time around is that our qualifiers for the Champions League are later in the year and we have only just started pre-season, Colak has already started playing games for PAOK so he will at least be ready to hit the ground running when he does eventually make the move.

Fergie is right though, the sooner we get new additions in the better. It takes time to adapt to new surroundings, new team-mates and a new way of playing, and that’s without the pressure and expectancy that comes with being a Rangers player, however, having seen Colak’s performance at Ibrox last summer, I’m not sure he’ll be overly concerned about playing in front of 50,000 fans when they are cheering him on rather than telling him where to go.