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Rangers Transfer Thread - 2015/16

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perthsaint1977

perthsaint1977

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W

Leeds Utd signed Diagouraga for just under £600,000

Either Rangers are hugely underestimating the value clubs put on their players or are bidding for players they know for certain they can't afford.

Same thing happened with St. Johnstone regarding O'Halloran

Did Rangers really expect St. Johnstone couldn't wait to part with one of their best players a for less than 500k?

Looks like its freed players or loanees for now.

Gotta laugh at this Saints holding Rangers to ransom nonsense. Sour grapes more like

I have been reliably informed that both their bids (110K and 150K) were both in installments :o:blink::lol:
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scottxs

scottxs

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Keith Jackson: Missing out on St Johnstone star Michael O'Halloran isn’t an option for Rangers chairman Dave King

KEITH insists King has to ensure Rangers land the Saints attacker after he failed Mark Warburton by allowing Leeds to swoop in and steal Brentford ace Toumani Diagouraga.

THERE’S a famous line from a play written by Oscar Wilde that came to mind last week.

“To lose one player, Mr Warburton, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

OK, a slight b*****disation of Wilde’s original words. For a start, the character in question was a Mr Worthing and not a Mr Warburton.

And he had misplaced his parents rather than his priority January transfer target.

But, as irony would have it, for Dave King and his Rangers regime the next eight days are all about the Importance of Being Earnest nonetheless.

Next Monday night the curtain will come down on the current window and when it does we will have a better idea of whether or not the Rangers chairman - who is so fond of talking the talk - is really to be taken as a man of his word.

Because if St Johnstone’s Michael O’Halloran is not reporting to training at Murray Park the next morning, King will have some explaining to do both to his manager and to the Ibrox club’s supporters.

As mentioned in this very column, this time last week Warburton was very confident of landing both O’Halloran and Brentford’s Tounami Diagouraga even though the bill for both players would have been close to £1million.

Read more: Rangers miss out on transfer target Toumani Diagouraga as midfielder signs for Leeds United instead

But after several days of prolonged and stony silence, suddenly Leeds United entered the bidding for Diagouraga and within hours of meeting Brentford’s demands the Frenchman was in Yorkshire to finalise the terms of his contract at Elland Road.

That one will have stung Warburton because he had identified Diagouraga as precisely the player he needed to help push Rangers on towards promotion. In addition, he believed the sums involved to be reasonable and achievable for King and his co-investors to cover.

Diagouraga’s transfer is expected to be finalised this morning and although no definitive fee has been made public, it has been widely reported down south that Leeds got their man for a cash outlay of somewhere in the region of £600,000.

In Championship terms, this represents something of a snip and - if indeed that is confirmed as the final price - Warburton will be smarting at seeing this one get away.

He desperately wanted to secure a specialist defensive midfield operator during the January sales. Not only does his team lack experience in that area but Warburton also wishes to unshackle Andy Halliday and deploy him further upfield throughout the second half of the campaign.

In his mind’s eye, a trio of Diagouraga, Halliday and Jason Holt would have provided his engine room with the balance it requires.

That Rangers refused to pay the going rate for this player may have set some alarm bells ringing inside Warburton’s own head but his board will argue that Brentford’s demands were simply spiralling too high.

There have been suggestions in Yorkshire, for example, that the final bill for Diagouraga, including various contractual add-ons, may exceed £1m and if that is the case then perhaps Rangers were right to stand their ground.

After all, of all clubs, Rangers have learned the lessons of recklessness and binge spending in the market.

But this dowdy world of financial reality is sharply contradicted by King’s own fluffy rhetoric, some of which is in danger of seeming fanciful and - if O’Halloran is not tied down in the next few days - maybe even disingenuous.

Since bursting his way into the boardroom to liberate his football club from a long line of charlatans, King has spoken of a potential need for “over investment” during the January transfer window.

Back in September, after seeing Celtic land another of Warburton’s targets from Hibs, King talked of recruiting as many as “five or six Scott Allans” before next season begins.

Of course, even before he completed his takeover, King had expressed an intention to plough upwards of £30m of his own cash into the rebuild and it’s these hubristic manifesto boasts which jarred at the senses last week when Diagouraga disappeared in a puff of Massimo Cellino’s cigar smoke.

To King’s credit, much good has been achieved over the last 10 months to repair years of grotesque corporate vandalism. As a result, today’s Rangers are in a far more robust shape than the basketcase he discovered upon entry.

Enormous amounts of money have been pumped into the club account by King and a number of his allies and it’s estimated that so far, including cash spent on shares and in repaying Mike Ashley’s £5m loan, the running total stands close to £15m.

King’s share of this net spend is believed to be north of £7m.

Perhaps most commendable of all has been King’s willingness to stare down one of the world’s wealthiest men in Ashley for the good of his club and to stand firm even when the formidable Sports Direct founder was attempting to have him thrown into a jail cell for his insubordination.

Last week in a London court room, Mr Justice Peter Smith cleared King of contempt but also accused the Newcastle owner of misusing the threat of a custodial sentence as some sort of bully boy tactic.

That was a significant victory for King. But the loss of Diagouraga was a dampener he could have done without.

And, of course, it came at a time when title rivals Hibs were busy tooling up for the run-in, with Celtic’s Anthony Stokes the obvious headline act in a flurry of five new arrivals.

Which is precisely why the ongoing O’Halloran saga must now be settled quickly and to Warburton’s satisfaction.

If King or his directors believe this deal will be more straightforward because it’s being done in their own back yard as opposed to England’s cash rich second tier, they should think again.

If they believe for a second that St Johnstone are not sending out feelers over the border and hoping to bring an English Championship team to the table in the hope of ramping up the price, they are being dangerously naive.

As it stands, there is a deal to be done here for around £500,000 - a sum that hardly touches the sides of King’s previous financial projections.

If King and his directors understand the true importance of being earnest, they cannot risk allowing this one to slip away too.

What a slavering twat

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Radford

Radford

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St Johnstone clearly risk lowering their chances of league and cup success if they sell their best player. Saints have put a valuation on that of around £500,000 but it seems Mark Warburton is the only man whose opinion matters when it comes to value.

Rangers are trying to buy a £500,000 player for less than half of that. They've walked into the wrong shop I think, Poundland is down the road. But if they do have £500,000 to spend on a winger, why don't they identify a player that high arbiter Warbs values at that level, as surely they'll be better than a player he values at less than half of that?

The reality is that Rangers didn't have £500,000 to spend on one player when they first came in for O'Halloran, hence all the tosh about value and ransom. They'll now look silly if they do meet the price but that's maybe still a better option than the reaction if they don't add to the squad.

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RandomGuy.

RandomGuy.

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Installments include clauses pertaining to wins in the Champions League :lol: no wonder they make no progress in negotiations.

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