Kenny Dalglish raves about ‘excellent’ Rangers-linked Frank Lampard, moots Chelsea loan deals
Rangers are expected to announce their new manager in the next couple of days after talks this weekend, according to Sir Kenny Dalglish.
The former Celtic player has mentioned several names who’ve been linked with the vacancy at Ibrox and seems most enthused about Frank Lampard.
The Scottish Sun has reported that the ex-Chelsea midfielder and manager could be set for talks with Rangers this weekend as they aim to replace Steven Gerrard as quickly as possible.
Dalglish has mooted the possibility of the Gers raiding Chelsea for a couple of loan players if Lampard does arrive in Glasgow.
“They have been linked with Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Frank Lampard, Rino Gattuso, Callum Davidson, Derek McInnes and John Terry,” Dalglish wrote for the Sunday Post.
“We are led to believe that talks are taking place this weekend with one or two candidates, and an announcement is expected early this week.
“The onus is on the Board to get this one right, and the next six months will determine whether or not Rangers retain their title and get direct access to the £35million Champions League riches.
“They need to appoint someone who will go and do even better than Steven. That has to be in their thinking.
“Of the candidates I mentioned, I think Frank has excellent credentials.
“In his first job at Derby County, he showed lots of promise. That’s why Chelsea took him on.
“I thought he was very unfortunate to lose his job at Stamford Bridge, and deserved more time.
“He still has a good relationship with Chelsea and that might be beneficial to Rangers if he can bring one or two players to Ibrox on loan from London.”
Billy Gilmour, anyone?
It seems fairly obvious that if Rangers hire Lampard, there’ll be a number of Chelsea players linked with Ibrox.
Ex-Gers youngster Billy Gilmour is likely to be one of them with the young midfielder currently not getting as much game-time on loan at Norwich as he would have hoped.
However, saying that a link-up between Rangers and Chelsea is simplistic when you consider that Gerrard didn’t use his connections at Liverpool that often.
Sure, he signed Ryan Kent, John Flanagan, Ovie Ejaria and Sheyi Ojo from Liverpool but they were all in his first two seasons. And only one of them really worked out for us.
Gerrard and the club learned that simply signing these players for the sake of the relationship of the manager isn’t ideal and we doubt that would happen with Chelsea and Lampard if he’s hired.
Gilmour would be different, we can see his class but he also may be too good for the Scottish Premiership now.
In other Rangers news, an official partner of the club has hit out at the Daily Record’s update on the managerial search.