Hearts line up replacement for John Souttar as Rangers pursue pre-contract deal
Hearts have seemingly found a potential replacement for Rangers-bound John Souttar, according to The Times.
The newspaper reports that Philadelphia Union’s former Kilmarnock defender Stuart Findlay is being eyed up as someone who can come in at Tynecastle if Souttar, 25, moves on.
The Times reports that Rangers, Blackburn and Sheffield United are bidding to sign the Scotland centre-back with the Gers keen on finding a replacement for Connor Goldson, whose deal expires in the summer.
The Glasgow Evening Times claims the Light Blues are in pole position to sign Souttar on a pre-contract deal and could even strike a late January deal to sign him in this transfer window.
More and more likely
We’d love to see Rangers get this deal done in January.
If you go back a few Januarys, we were in this position with Glen Kamara when he was signed up on a pre-contract deal and then a permanent deal was struck with Dundee for just £50,000 in the January window.
While Souttar is bound to cost us more than that if he was to join this month, it just goes to show that you can do really good business this way.
We’ve got a big issue at the back too.
Connor Goldson is the only centre-back who’s been reliable in terms of his fitness and availability this season while Calvin Bassey is having to play out of his comfort zone alongside him.
It remains to be seen if Filip Helander and Leon Balogun will be available to play next week when the winter break ends but it doesn’t seem as though we can bet on it.
Jack Simpson is out of the picture too and Nikola Katic is out on loan so signing Souttar this month would be great as we could even have him ready to play against Celtic in the Old Firm.
In other Rangers news, Dharmesh Sheth was messaged live on Sky Sports by a player amid a major piece of news at Ibrox.