Rangers sporting director Ross Wilson has strongly defended the club’s summer transfer business – and told the club’s fans to expect more from the player trade going forward.
The Ibrox boss has felt the wrath of his own fans recently after none of the club’s summer signings started their Champions League tie against Napoli.
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This comes after the club splashed out big money on the likes of Joe Arriba and Calvin Bassey in the summer.
Those deals will be under the microscope again in midweek when Giovanni van Bronckhorst brings his team to Anfield to face Liverpool, but Wilson has defended stars like Ben Davies and Ridwan Yilmaz who have yet to be seen by Ibrox fans in competition action.
He also hailed the club’s board for their continued support of the club – and calls Rangers’ training facility “by far the best in the country”.
Wilson said The Times: “Ben [Davies] did not spend a full pre-season with Liverpool.
“He’s on top now, back on the bench, ready to go and the manager and staff are very happy with him.
“Look, some players come in here and run straight away.
“I’ve seen that from Antonio Cholak, who has had a great start to his career at Rangers with a number of goals.
“Tom Lawrence, who joined us from Derby, was superb.”
“[Malik Tillman] made a great impression despite being a young man.”
“Rabi took a little longer to get going, but again, we’re very happy with him and we’re confident he’ll do well for us.
“The rabbi took a little longer to get going, but again, we’re very happy with him and we’re confident he’ll do well for us,” says Wilson.
He said of Yilmaz: “He was very wanted by many European clubs, a young man who we are very happy to have, who we signed a five-year contract and we are committed to him for five years, not five weeks.
“The manager, the person who selects the team, was satisfied with the performance of Borna Barisic, our Croatian [international] left back.
“But we are very pleased with Ridwan and he will perform well for the Rangers course.”
Wilson admits some of the club’s players will want to move to bigger leagues than Scotland.
Not least because the sums clubs receive in TV money are still dwarfed by the cash on offer south of the border.
“We would call ourselves a ‘club that trades players’ rather than a ‘club that sells’.
“But it’s an absolute fact of life that there will come a point when most of the players who play for Rangers, who people recognize as one of the top clubs in European football, may want to go and play in what they consider to be the top league of European football and not game in Scotland.”
“You know when you meet someone at a wedding and the standard question is, ‘What do you do mate?’ Wilson says. “The standard question at the round table in Europe is, ‘Where are you with the prize money?’ and “What is your TV income?” None of them can believe it if we answer this question.’
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