Manager Philippe Clement’s summer transfer plans are in full flow right now as he looks to reshape and rebuild the Rangers first team squad, and fans have already seen the arrival of left back Jefte, centre half Clinton Nsiala, Oscar Cortes who returns on loan, and this week’s capture of former Aberdeen midfielder Connor Barron.
Sadly though, not everything is going to plan when it comes to our scheduled off pitch improvements for this summer, and the club have now confirmed that there has been an unexpected delay to our improvement works on the Copland Stand at Ibrox Stadium and odds comparison would not have predicted this as the delay is completely out of our hands, and is ultimately down to a shipping issue with some of our materials that are coming in from Asia, and it will now effect our programme of works and the over all completion time for the works.
This in turn means that for the opening few matches of the coming 2024/25 Scottish Premiership campaign, there will be an impact on our games until we can complete the planned works. Whilst we continue to await the release of the fixture list for the coming campaign, the club cannot yet determine whether or not some games will need to be moved, or whether we may simply be talking about temporarily reduced capacities for games at the beginning of the year.
The expectation is that we will likely be away for the opening game of the year on either August 3rd or 4th, but then be at home for the following weekend. There are also the two possible Champions League qualifying home legs to factor in for August as well.
Whilst the club statement referenced the obvious disappointment that this development was, it confirmed it had already been in contact with both the SPFL and Uefa to state that there would be an impact on games at Ibrox and talks have already been had on potential contingency arrangements so any disruption is kept to an absolute minimum, and whatever the fixture list may throw at us, we can suitably work around it with the minimum of fuss.
Rangers also confirmed that they continue to look at ways to deliver the project now at the earliest possible date and that in due course, a further update would be given to fans.
For now though, it is all eyes back to Scotland’s progress at the 2024 European Championships, with one eye firmly glancing at what other transfer business our 50 year old Belgian gaffer and Nils Koppen have for the remainder of the window. It is fully expected that we will see at least another two, or three, arrivals simply based on those players that we saw leave when their existing contracts came to a natural end this summer.
Quite who those players could be though is a complete unknown, however, we are certainly still being linked with some very interesting possibilities as Clement continues to try and totally reshape his options, and further potential outgoings are still being hinted at as well.
Our next potential deal, or at least our most likely next potential deal, could be for one capped Scotland international and Motherwell goalkeeper, Liam Kelly, as if reports are to be believed, following Barron’s signature, we are now pushing to get a deal for the 28 year old over the line.
