Michael Beale drops hint Rangers could trigger £6m clause to sign Malik Tillman permanently
Michael Beale may have just dropped the biggest hint yet that Rangers will try to sign Malik Tillman permanently in the summer.
The American playmaker signed on an initial season-long loan with an option to buy for £6.2m in the summer, something that reports have suggested could have been too expensive for the team as they’ve currently shown no signs of activating that option.
But after Rangers terminated the loan of James Sands early this week, Beale’s comments explaining why that got done point to the future of Tillman being at Ibrox beyond the summer.
“James came to me about four weeks ago and asked if there was a possibility he could go back. He saw that he was going to find playing time difficult,” he said, as quoted by Herald Scotland (3 March).
“He’s a midfielder who’s had to play predominantly at centre back. I didn’t see me playing a loan player over one or two who are Rangers players and will be Rangers players going forward.
“We had an honest conversation and I asked him to stay until the cup final because Connor Goldson and Ben Davies were our only centre backs and if we had any issues James would need to play.
“We agreed to that and that’s why he wasn’t in the squad at the weekend as ultimately he wasn’t going to be here.”
While that’s all fair and makes total sense, it does beg the question as to why he continues to pick Tillman as one of the first names on his team sheet despite him being on loan too.
Ryan Kent, Todd Cantwell, Fashion Sakala Jr, Scott Arfield, Alex Lowry and Scott Wright are all capable of playing in his position and are all permanently contracted to the club beyond this season – barring Kent.
Yet Tillman remains a regular in the side and Beale has spoken incredibly about him, even about how well he fits into the side that he wants to build going forward.
If that isn’t a sign that the club are seriously planning to make Tillman apart of the squad for the long-term this summer, then Beale is a massive hypocrite and a liar.
We know which of those two options we’d prefer it to be, and that ends with the Ibrox number 71 signing a new deal and taking us to glory in the coming seasons.
In other Rangers news, an official announcement this week must be the start of something bigger for Beale and Rangers this summer.