Michael Stewart claims Rangers must want to sign Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland on BBC Sportsound
Michael Stewart refuses to believe that Rangers aren’t looking at signing Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland as he tipped three Jambos to make it into the Gers team.
The 27-year-old Scot is second in the SPFL scoring charts with 17, and despite Michael Beale’s side comfortably overwhelming Robbie Neilson’s in midweek, Stewart insists that the striker, left-back Stephen Kingsley and injured goalkeeper Craig Gordon are good enough for Ibrox.
He dismissed lesser-spotted summer signing Ridvan Yilmaz in comparison to Kingsley, and believes Shankland’s form will definitely have teams looking at a move for him, which he expects to include Rangers.
Stewart said on BBC Sportsound on Saturday (4 February), as per The Scottish Sun: “I would argue that there are players in this Hearts side that are capable of getting into the squad of Rangers in particular.
“For example, Stephen Kingsley… his last couple of games have been poor but he is a quality player. He could be challenging at left back for Rangers, no question about that for me.
“They paid £4m for Yilmaz and personally Kingsley is a better player. He’s a Scottish talent, he knows the league, he is someone who can go and play.
“And you can’t tell me that Rangers wouldn’t be sniffing about Lawrence Shankland – who has banged in 20 goals this season.
“If they’re not then great, because Hearts are going to keep him. But of course teams are going to be looking at him,
“Right off the bat, there’s two players who would be challenging for the squad of these teams. And Craig Gordon, still at 40 years old, he is good enough to be getting a game for these teams too.”
Summer market
Maybe Shankland and Kingsley will be on Beale’s mind come the end of the season, although given Allan McGregor is surely set to retire this time around at the age of 41 it would hardly be an injection of youth to turn to Gordon in goal, especially coming off a serious broken leg.
Either way, it is a strange time to be espousing the merits of Tynecastle players as being better than those at Ibrox just a few days after Rangers made a convincing case for the opposite.
Alfredo Morelos scored twice on 1 February as the Light Blues won 3-0 in Edinburgh, while he and Fashion Sakala had three more ruled out for offside.
The Colombian may be gone by the summer, but Antonio Colak has scored 11 in the league himself this season despite being out for some time with injury.
Yilmaz has barely played himself since his summer arrival from Besiktas, as Giovanni van Bronckhorst seemed loath to bring him into the line up and he has been out since early November.
Beale does want a striker and should El Bufalo not extend his contract then there might be an argument to look at the Hearts stand-in captain, but considering how successful it has been so far bringing in John Souttar from the Jam Tarts the Gers hierarchy might think twice.
The Ibrox boss has already made clear that he sees the need for extensive improvements to his squad, yet despite that his best win in charge came at Tynecastle, so whether Stewart is right or not about the decision makers considering Shankland and company it is not currently the strongest argument to be making.
In other Rangers news, one player who is better than the Hearts squad was dubbed “different class” on BBC Sportsound as he wowed against Ross County.