If Rangers are to make anymore additions to Steven Gerrard’s squad, they will have to move fast given that today is the day that it officially “slams” shut.
Sunday’s win over Celtic showed that it is in decent shape, having a host of regular starters and two senior goalkeepers missing didn’t appear to have any real bearing on the result with the away trip to Armenia being the most obvious reason fo the tactics that we saw us adopt at Ibrox.
The bench was still packed with internationals capable of making an impact with Scott Arfield, John Lundstram and Fashion Sakala all being brought on to add fresh legs, but this doesn’t mean that the Gers gaffer should rest on his laurels.
One player who has been lined with a move to Rangers throughout the summer is Zinedine Ferhat with The Daily Record providing an update on the Algerian winger’s future at the weekend:
“Zinedine Ferhat is “still negotiating” his exit from Nimes, according to reports in France.
“The Algerian playmaker has been linked with a number of clubs this summer, including Rangers, Mallorca, Burnley and Istanbul Basaksehir.
“However, French media reported he would likely remain in Ligue 2 this term with his current club holding out for a bumper pay day.
“Foot Mercato now report Strasbourg have returned to the table for talks and Ferhat is hopeful he will be allowed to leave.”
Ferhat has just a year left on his contract so, if he has to spend the next few months in Ligue 2, I’d be very surprised if we don’t slide into his DMs sometime in the new year to see if he would fancy making the move to Glasgow.
He’s a different type of forward to the ones we have in Ryan Kent and Scott Wright and would be more comfortable when we play with a wide front three rather than the narrower one that lined up against Celtic, not to say that he wouldn’t be able to adapt – you don’t play over 100 times in Ligue 1 without having a decent level of ability.
Valued at over £7million, his club, Nimes, are believed to be looking for over €3.5m (£3m) to release him this summer, however, other than Strasbourg, there appears to be no other concrete interest.
A pre-contract deal would be our best bet of getting him, that sort of price tag for a 28-year old just isn’t the sort of transfer that Ross Wilson would make but with every hour that passes, our chances of luring him to Ibrox improve considerably.