Rangers’ summer transfer window 2024

This summer was billed as a rebuild for Rangers, but not your typical rebuild. Last season’s team was not bad, and were it not for some key goals by a player Celtic have since spent over £8.5 million on, Rangers might have won the treble. Rather, this rebuild was primarily financial, to be blunt Rangers’ wage bill was far too high, with too many players earning more than £20K per week and too many squad players earning disproportionately high wages.

This summer Rangers have lost 14 players from last season’s first team squad, only 3 have left on loan (Ben Davies, Jose Cifuentes and, Johnly Yfeko). As many as 6, were free transfers with several contracts simply not being renewed. I suspect Philippe Clement was content for all these players to leave, with the possible exception of John Lundstram, and while many left for free, they managed to free up a large sum of money in wages. Using Salarysport for reference we can see that Rangers freed up over £9 million in wages. I have not been able to find any reliable information for salaries for the new signings, but I would be shocked if they were earning close to those who have left. Unlike the last few seasons, Rangers have not signed any players from England, where wages tend to be much higher.

In recent years the general rule has been that Rangers could spend £10 million plus whatever was made from player sales, Rangers did not spend that much this summer with £13.68 million being spent, net spend was just £8.28 million. The club spent a lot last summer and this summer was about rebalancing with the club opting to bring in 3 players on loan (there is an obligation to buy Cortes for £4.5 million, there is an option to buy Kasanwirjo and there was a fee for Černy). One of those loan deals was a deadline day deal where loans tend to be more common, but having a season to evaluate a player without committing a sizeable transfer fee is not a bad policy in Scotland.

In terms of quality, it is difficult to judge if the squad is any better, but I don’t think it’s any worse. I haven’t seen enough of players like Bajrami or Kasanwirjo, and I am relying on Pröpper’s reputation in the Eredevisie to judge him, but it does appear to be an exciting squad. The Rangers board have shown confidence in Philippe Clement by extending his existing deal, he deserves the chance to build his team and I suspect there is enough from this window for him to be optimistic. If Clement is happy with the players he has brought in, then there may be reason to be confident this season.

Rangers has unfortunately missed out on the Champion’s League, and the huge amount of money that comes with it. Perhaps more business would have been done had that money been available. Rangers were linked with Albion Rrahmani all summer, he eventually made a £4.2 million move to Sparta Prague (a decent decrease in the original £6 million valuation) and Lawrence Shankland, whose contract expires in January. I suspect Shankland may be on the radar when his contract is up, rather than paying £3 million.

You can see a summary of Rangers’ transfer business below. How do you rate this summer’s business?

Rangers Summer Transfers 2024