Rangers squad building: Will it be short or long term planning?

Very few clubs with similar pressure to win every game like Rangers are able to focus solely on the second model, and those that do usually have the luxury of being able to spend tens of millions on both types of players. At Rangers, players joining even in the £2-4m category are expected to make an instant impact on the pitch and contribute heavily from the get-go. It’s the nature of the beast and rightly so, as these standards are important and fed by the high expectations of the Ibrox crowd. 

Inspired by the excellent ‘Sensible Transfers’ series on the Athletic, let’s apply that logic to priority positions for Rangers' summer recruitment. The highest of which is undoubtedly reinforcements to attacking options.

Do Rangers sign a 28-year-old centre forward currently at the peak of his powers? Or do they ‘gamble’ on much younger players with a potentially higher potential ceiling who aren't quite at that quality level? Can they afford to do both this summer?

Rangers finished last season playing a 4-3-1-2 formation with Todd Cantwell in the number ten role and a two-striker ‘split’ set up which focused on getting more attacking output at the top of the pitch.

READ MORE: Cyriel Dessers' Rangers credentials - The Feyenoord lowdown

Michael Beale also asked these strikers to move into wider areas in various phases of games to assist out of possession and help create chances in conjunction with the full-backs and no.8s. In essence, Fashion Sakala was the poster boy for this approach as he was able to consistently score goals but also stretch play on the flanks and create spaces for others such as Todd Cantwell to take advantage of.

Given the above detail outlining how Rangers may want their two strikers to play moving into the coming season, the attacker profiles the club are looking for then start to become a little clearer.

In essence, Rangers could be looking for a ’Number 9’ in the mould of peak Alfredo Morelos and then a more modern Sakala-esque ‘wide attacker’ who can play wider (but not a pure winger) in a front three or as part of a strike partnership.

Let’s look at the state of play in the front three attacking positions. Sam Lammers and Kieran Dowell have joined this summer whilst Kent and Morelos have obviously left the club on free transfers. 

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that all players capable in number ten section will definitely remain at the club. In short, the quality level and depth  at number ten is good enough.

There are players there who are of the right age profile, quality levels and contract status to make this position less of a priority for recruitment as things stand. There are a number of options here but they can all probably also be utilised in different areas of the pitch depending on how the manager elects to play in certain games.

As far as the strikers are concerned, there are currently five options to fill the two roles we identified earlier in the article. Looking at the age profile only, Rangers in theory are well covered with two experienced players (Roofe & Colak), two players in their prime (Sakala & Wright) and a younger attacker (Rabbi Matondo). 

We won’t speculate on who might leave the club, but suffice to say that many fans do not see even one undisputed first-choice attacker within this group. It’s for this reason that this is the single biggest priority for the club’s recruitment and why Rangers have been linked with a number of attackers in the transfer market. 

Remembering the ‘short-term need versus long-term planning’ theme of the article, the links to Cyriel Dessers, Josh Maja and Danilo become quite interesting.

In Dessers, Rangers clearly believe they are looking at a player with significant experience at a high level in European football. He has scored 31 goals and assisted 7 in his last two seasons of football in Serie A, the Eredivise, and Feyenoord’s run to the Europa Conference League final in 2021/22. 

He is a modern number nine who contributed well to Cremonese’s ultimately doomed Serie A campaign, showing up well in the quality of shots he takes and how active he is in build-up setting up chances for his teammates.

He is 28 years old and would absolutely fit the ‘short-term need’ to bring in proven quality as the main Rangers striker. However, the cost of this signing is rumoured to be between £5-6m which could be prohibitive, particularly when you start to widen the context to include long-term planning.

If you compare Dessers to 24 year old Feyenoord attacker Danilo, there is actually very little material difference in their current levels of output and ability over the past two seasons. Both players are performing at around the same level and ironically have both very recently played for Feyenoord making it easier to compare both players when watching them play.

In his Feyenoord season in 21/22, Dessers scored at a rate of 0.43 goals per 90 minutes. Last season, Danilo scored 0.56 goals per 90 minutes for Feyenoord primarily in the first half of the season. In the latter half of the season, he lost his starting striker place to the outstanding Santiago Gimenez as Feyenoord stormed to the Eredivisie title and that’s where there could be an opportunity for Rangers to make their move. Danilo only turned 24 in April of this year, so is 4.5 years younger than Dessers and arguably performing at the same if not a similar level.

Josh Maja is the third ‘rumoured’ no.9 and is also 24 years old. Coming off the back of a very good season for Ligue 2 Bordeaux in which he scored 16 goals (albeit 7 of these came from the penalty spot), he may be available on a free transfer.

This situation is complicated due to Bordeaux’s play off match being postponed and the club seeking legal advice to determine whether they will be promoted to Ligue 1 or remain in Ligue 2. For me, Maja is not quite yet at the quality level of the first two players but taking age and contract status into account he also fits the overarching strategy.

So, the long-term planning picture starts to be come clearer. If Rangers are being priced out of a move for 28-year-old Dessers, it could make more financial sense to move for 24-year-old Danilo given the player is of a similar profile and quality level.

It may even be the case that Rangers are willing to spend slightly more on Danilo due to his age and the prospect of selling him for a higher fee in the future. Risk versus reward. Similarly, a free transfer coming in and performing well would represent sensible transfer business, albeit there may be a complicated situation to navigate in the case of Maja.

In the case of the second striker role, Rangers will soon tie up the loan signing for 22-year-old Brighton forward Abdallah Sima. He has been on loan at Angers in Ligue 1 this season and similar to Dessers, has been playing in a team which have since been relegated. 

His statistics below do not make for pleasant reading when compared to an average forward in the Top 9 European leagues but it’s worth bearing in mind that Angers struggled badly this year, going over four months without a league win at one point. Whilst Sima was not always a regular in the first half of this season, his playing time improved as the weeks wore on. Despite this, Sima has contributed 0.25 goals per 90 minutes playing in a two man strike partnership, the same role he could fulfil at Ibrox.

Sima could fall into the same category as Todd Cantwell, a highly promising player who for varying reasons has endured a difficult couple of seasons. It’s quickly becoming the stereotype of a potential Michael Beale signing.

Whilst originally being known as a wide player, he definitely appears to be flexible enough to play both positions in the mould of Fashion Sakala. Despite turning 22 just a matter of weeks ago, Sima could potentially show the benefit of the loan market and be a solid candidate for ‘short-term success’

The final player linked is Benie Traore, the Ivorian attacker currently lighting up with Allsvenskan for Swedish champions BK Hacken. At just 20 years of age, he is the youngest player linked so far however his performances this season cannot be underestimated. He’s currently the leading scorer in the league for Hacken with a ridiculous 0.85 goals scored per 90 minutes. Intriguingly his xG is 0.73 per 90 which indicates that he is finishing close to the number of chances he would be expected to and could make this goalscoring run sustainable for a little while longer. Traore missed the entire title-winning campaign last year due to a broken leg but looks to be wasting no time getting back into the swing of things.

Traore is the least experienced player linked with Rangers this summer but intriguingly is also the closest player to the profile Michael Beale indicated he was looking for earlier in the year.

“We will be looking for more than a centre forward, we are looking for centre forwards,” he explained. “When we play in Europe or big games then every player must take part in every minute of the game. I like forwards not to be one position but interchange and move around and have a lot of freedom. We want energy, speed, and personality. If you want to be a No 9 here you need to have that. At both ends of the pitch we probably need a bit of experience at this moment. This isn’t the moment to go with rookies at both ends of the park.”

The last sentence would probably explain why Traore is currently on the list of attackers but not the number one priority. And yet the skillset Beale describes is exactly what Traore could bring. He is a player who is capable of playing across a front three, he is very quick and presses opposition defences well, showing an out-of-possession intelligence that Rangers require as a priority. He’s also very involved in his team's build-up play and ranks well in both passes and chances created for his teammates albeit from a relatively small sample size of games. His 15 goals so far this season have come from just 44 shots (and just 27 shots on target) which shows how clinical he is in the penalty area for someone so young. It goes without saying this is something Rangers have been crying out for throughout the last couple of seasons.

With a fee rumoured to be between £3-5m, he would obviously cost more than the loan signing of Abdallah Sima but again this nicely illustrates the decisions that Rangers may be thinking through. Traore possibly feels like more of a risk than a loan signing of a player with Abdallah Sima’s reputation and experience in the game, but given Sima would incur a loan fee and higher wages only to be sent back to Brighton again next summer, there may again be a longer-term aspect here that Rangers would consider.

Given the immediate need for reinforcements, if Rangers were able to marry up the short-term need and longer-term planning aspects with the players linked above then that could be hugely beneficial for years to come.