Whilst most Scotland fans had their eyes on Sunday’s European Championship Group A stage clash with Hungary, Rangers fans were treated to a little bit more summer transfer rumour mill speculation about who our fifth capture of the summer could be – as most media outlets were reporting that Hamza Igamane was the newest name through the door.
Although Saturday afternoons news was yet to be officially confirmed, it was being claimed that the 21 year old striker had now sealed his switch to Ibrox on a five year deal, and would be manager Philippe Clement’s fifth capture of his first summer in charge, and although rumours about the lad were in play, for those who like a flutter betting on their favourite team to win Euro 2024 championship would have been a better option.
Again, with a far more youthful feel to the target, it is being claimed that he comes into the club for a fee of £2.5 million from AS Far Rabat. Negotiations were apparently concluded at some point on Friday, and the very highly rated Moroccan Under 23 international is said to have already undertaken his medical with success, and we are now simply waiting on his international clearance to come through, with official confirmation expected at some time in the next 24 to 48 hours.
In terms of new recruits, Igamane follows Jefte, Oscar Cortes, Clinton Nsiala and Connor Barron through our doors as summer fresh faces and options to our gaffer’s first team squad.
He is clearly a player with potential that Rangers obviously feel that we can significantly develop further in the years ahead, and having made his professional debut in the 2021 campaign, across all domestic Botola competitions that I can find, it seems that in a total of 58 appearances, the young lad has returned 16 goals. 45 of those appearances have come in the league competition, wherein he is credited with 13 of his career goals.
Having come through AS Far’s youth ranks, he is the youngest player in their history to play his part in winning the national title, the Throne Cup and the Under 23 African Cup of Nations in 2023.
It will be very interesting to see how he fits into our Belgian’s plans for the coming campaign, but he will definitely need a decent transition period as he adjusts to life in a new country, a new language and a new division, not least the expectation levels that Gers players need to understand and live up to, but in Clement we continue to trust.
In other weekend news, the future of skipper and right back James Tavernier seems to be back at the front and centre of rumour mill speculation.
The news is not particularly new, or original, in fairness but given the departures we have already seen, with new signings coming in for reasonable money, most in the faithful would continue to expect to see a few sales out to help balance the books and with 32 year old Tav being one of our presumed most saleable assets over the last few years, despite being a year away from a testimonial recognition for a decade’s worth of service, rumours of a reunion with former manager Steven Gerrard at Saudi Arabian side Al Ettifaq just will not go away.
A similar move remains true for Connor Goldson given the earlier speculation that we have seen about his potential future over the last couple of months, despite his own practical ever present status in recent seasons.
Todd Cantwell rumours continue given his own mixed 2023/24 campaign he had under Clement, with his best and worst, being clearly on show for all to see depending on what game we were playing.
We will simply have to see what that next good few weeks bring, as although deals are obviously already going through, when summer competitions are at play the transfer window does normally seem like it takes a little bit longer to get fully up and running.
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