There are now just two games left in the domestic Scottish Premiership campaign. With clashes remaining against Dundee and then Heart of Midlothian before Rangers even consider turning their attentions to the true curtain closer and the Scottish Cup Final later this month, it now unfortunately looks very unlikely that manager Philippe Clement’s side will achieve our dream of lifting the title.
Although recent dips have been very costly and disappointing, the bigger picture remains that it has largely been a great first season for our 50 year old gaffer, and we have all seen the improvements that he has made since taking over from former boss Michael Beale. For those who like using online casinos with games like ultimate hot, few would have expected our season to fluctuate as wildly as it did between both managers.
It remains pretty obvious though that it will now be a big summer for him as he continues to look to shape the squad to suit his own playing ethos, and on that front there should be a number of pretty obvious and quick improvements that can be made during the summer transfer window to improve the strength and spine of the side. Naturally, it will require some departures, but that is the name of the game and there will be some in the group who know that they have too regularly let us down at key points this season, and we need to aim higher.
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There will be further improvements that come from Clement simply having a full pre season with the team, and he will undoubtedly have already identified those players he wishes to move on, and indicated to the board that there are those in the first team that he wants to build around and keep, almost at any cost.
It seems that one of those latter group will obviously be 31 year old former England international goalkeeper, Jack Butland.
Back in the January transfer window there was plenty of rumour mill speculation that having had such a good season at Ibrox, and won plenty of plaudits for his performances, that interest was likely to be very high in him come the summer, and that obviously Rangers should be looking to cash in on him with a fee far in excess of £10 million, to really bolster Clement’s war chest and rebuilding efforts.
I imagine many in the Gers faithful will have been pleased to see recent reports that suggest that as far as our gaffer is concerned, Butland is one player that he wants to keep at the club and he believes that offers ‘for any price’ should be rejected this summer.
Whilst Clement expects there to be big changes to the squad ahead of the new campaign, that goalkeeper is not a position he wants to concern himself with as he knows that there are far more important areas of the pitch that need addressing.
In a recent interview he was directly asked if key players had been given a price to fund the changes that he wants to make, and whilst he admitted that some certainly had a good valuation on their heads that would interest us if it was met, and that we had identified a suitable replacement for a cheaper fee, but Butland was a ‘good example’ of a player we had no interest in selling at any price – whilst Clement would not give names, he did admit that Butland was not the only star on that particular list.
This was not a new process though, the groundwork was begun a good few months ago as the pure and simple aim for the 2024/25 campaign is to retake the title, and he wanted the planning work done early to increase our chances of doing just that as he knew it would take a lot of work – particularly with so many playing contracts coming to a natural end next month.
It will be interesting to see exactly what happens, and who does now arrive to take us to the next step.
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