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St Mirren Starlet Could Be A Clement Project

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The 2023/24 domestic Scottish Premiership campaign is now almost at a close, and after a very poor start to the season under former manager Michael Beale, the appointment of Philippe Clement has been transformational and despite a few wobbles, with a handful of games left to play, we are within three points of top spot.

Whatever happens from here on in will happen, and even if it is a more disappointing end to the year compared to where we were a few weeks back, there will be plenty of hope and optimism at Ibrox that the 2024/25 campaign will be even more consistent given the impact that we have already seen our 50 year old Belgian gaffer at the club.

Robby McCrorie, John Souttar and Ryan Jack will be hoping to head off to the Euros this summer, with the squad due to be announced in the coming weeks. The tips and predictions on Oddspedia suggest Scotland will do well to get out of the group stage. Souttar is likely to play the biggest role out of the three, so he’ll still be hoping to carry some form into the summer – and potentially even memories of an SPL title win. Jack looks like and outsider to make the squad due to his most recent injury and it looks as though we may have seen the last of him in a Rangers shirt as his contract expires at the end of the season.

The squad isn’t majorly disrupted by the Euros so the summer will be Clement’s first real chance to shape the playing squad to his desires, as the January transfer window in hardly ideal for newly installed managers as they still need to fully assess the squad that they have inherited, and of course it will be his first pre-season in charge which should give him far greater time to get his messages across without the additional distractions that he has had to deal with this year.

For all those reasons, and plenty of others, the Gers faithful should be fully expecting quite a busy summer that will feature both incomings, and outgoings, and we have already seen plenty of rumour mill speculation on that front, and the links have only grown stronger with every passing week as the summer approaches.

One of the latest to hit the headlines again is highly rated St Mirren youngster, Ethan Sutherland. The 18 year old talent is believed to have a big future at St Mirren Park, and he has certainly started to catch the eye of quite a few teams this season, owing to his performances for Scottish League One side Alloa Athletic given his loan spell to them in the second half of the current campaign.

Given his age, naturally English clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea have been linked with having an interest in the extremely versatile defender given how they hoover up talent from other clubs, and it is believed that they both had scouts in attendance in the last few weeks to cast a proper eye over him.

They will likely not be alone though in keeping a close eye on him, and it makes sense that Rangers would also be, as we look at our own options and we can naturally offer him a far better future pathway through to the first team squad when compared to pretty much any Premier League side.

Given reports already speculate that we have a ‘strong’ and ‘concrete’ interest in bringing him on board this summer, his versatility may well be a big pull for Clement as he looks to shape his development. The mainly left sided attacker has a number of mixed attributes, which has been proven by the fact that Alloa have also used him in the left back position at points so far this year, and in 14 matches for them so far, he has scored twice, and laid on six assists.

This may well be one deal worth watching as we move forward, as although he would be very much one for the future, he would be a project signing that could well do some kind of job for us next season as a largely unknown quantity at points.

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