Rangers have lacked a core of Scottish players pretty much since Steven Gerrard’s first season at the club.
Even then, players like Andy Halliday and Jason Holt were never going to join the likes of Allan McGregor and Scott Arfield in the squad in taking the club to the next level.
Nils Koppen sat down this week and gave an in depth interview covering every aspect of his new player trading plan geared towards bringing sustained success back to Rangers and trophies in to the Ibrox trophy room.
Nils Koppen drops SPFL signing spree for Rangers
Out of several pertinent points from the recruitment chief, the former PSV Eindhoven scout revealed that there is a genuine aim to put right a wrong of recent seasons, via The Rangers Review:
“We have to be aggressive in the youth market to try to get the best young players in the country and keep investing in that. Because the strong core of Scottish players should come from your own academy. And sporadically, you buy somebody from other clubs, like with Connor Barron.
“It’s one of our objectives, to try and sign one player a season from another Scottish club if they’re there and the deal makes sense and it fits the plan.
“There are so many circumstances with every transfer call you make. Does the money make sense, is the player arriving in a position you’re looking for, are you killing the value of another player in that position? You need to always consider the overall picture.”
Who could Rangers target if they shop local?
Lennon Miller is the obvious example of a player who Rangers could sign and the team wouldn’t be weakened.
Philippe Clement has a proven record of developing young players and he would have no qualms over tasking a teenager with such responsibility.
The manager has also spoken about trying to redress the problem of having a lack of Scots in the team.
A one in, one out situation could see Rangers get their money back on Ridvan Yilmaz and bring Jack MacKenzie in on a Bosman deal.
That makes sense financially and in terms of the overall picture.
Danny Armstrong is another.
At 27-years old, he might not have any real sell on value, but on a free transfer he wouldn’t need to, especially if he was replacing someone like Rabbi Matondo who is on big wages and has availability issues.
Koppen has made it pretty clear that a Scottish core will return to Rangers and, as Connor Barron has shown, shopping local can be worthwhile.
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