Philippe Clement admits every player apart from keeper Jack Butland has a price tag on their head this summer as he addressed the futures of his Rangers stalwarts.
The Belgian boss is working to add strength and depth to his squad ahead of the new campaign after labelling the summer window as the ‘end of a cycle’ in the aftermath of the Scottish Cup defeat to Celtic.
READ MORE: Check all the Rangers transfer news & rumours before the transfer window
Many supporters have expressed concern over the scale of the work that has been done so far amid ongoing doubts over the futures of captain James Tavernier and key figures such as Connor Goldson, Todd Cantwell and Cyriel Dessers.
Clement has revealed that he must offload members of his squad before he can embark on the spending spree to add to the six players that have been recruited so far. And he believes Butland is the only member of his squad that the Ibrox board will play hardball over before the close of business.
“There is a lot of speculation in Glasgow and I have read a lot of things that you say are totally not true,” Clement says when asked about the futures of his skipper and vice-captain.
“Fake news. But it is part of being in Glasgow. You cannot react to every fake news because then you’ll only be busy with that.
“What I see is that they brought a lot to the club the last couple of years. That they did really good games with me. They also did games where it was less, like all the team.
“For me they maybe played too much last season or the last couple of years because if you play 60 games nobody is every time at his top shape. They have done all of that for the club, they worked really hard for that.
“They are not going to play 60 games the season to come now and all the speculation around them is the same speculation that you can have around every player. It is the same for us.
Clement was speaking in the Netherlands about his captain's future (Image: SNS)
“If there is somebody coming with the right amount of money we will see, we will discuss. But you always need to see and then you need to replace somebody and you need enough money to replace them to make it better, otherwise it is also of no use. It is finding a balance in that way.
“I think there is only one player that is irreplaceable at the moment that I don’t think a team will pay the money that he is worth, for sure, and that is Jack Butland. Everybody knows what I think about that.”
Clement spent last week putting his players through their paces at a training camp in Holland. A behind-closed-doors draw with Standard Liege was followed by a friendly against Ajax on Saturday as all of the summer signings – apart from striker Hamza Igamane – were able to get down to business.
Rangers have further fixtures with Manchester United, Birmingham City and Union Berlin to come before the big kick-off next month and Clement won’t rule out any member of his travelling party from playing a role this term.
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“Everybody who is here is part of my plans,” Clement added. “It is like that. Otherwise they would not be here. That is the thing with fans, I think it changed with having the PlayStation or Football Manager and you can say ‘this player I don’t like he needs to be out’.
“It doesn’t work that way. These guys have contracts. I don’t speak now about Connor and Tav, it is just in general, all over the world it doesn’t work that way.
“You always need to be with two parties. Every player falls into that category. Only Jack. If somebody comes with £30million or £40million you can replace him for that money.
“Every player falls into that category. We need money to replace him. If it is a good amount you can replace him and do something else. We will see.”
Rangers returned to Glasgow on Sunday after rounding off their training camp in Holland with a 2-1 defeat to Ajax. Tom Lawrence scored a first half free-kick as two Butland blunders gave the Dutch giants the victory.
Clement was boosted by the return of striker Danilo. Speculation continues to surround the future of Cyriel Dessers, however. It is understood that clubs in Saudi Arabia and Europe are interested in the forward.
"I am very happy here, so I would like to stay," Dessers said after the Ajax defeat. "There is some interest, but my intention is to stay and then we will see what happens."
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