George Overhill

Fri 17 November 2023 17:40, UK

Lawrence Shankland “is ready to make that move” amid ongoing links to a Rangers transfer, according to Stephen McGinn.

The BBC pundit was speaking live on The Go Radio Football Show on 16 November during Scotland’s 2-2 draw with Georgia, prior to the Hearts striker netting a 92nd-minute equaliser, and backed him for an Ibrox switch in a favourable comparison to Cyriel Dessers.

He and fellow pundit Andy Walker, in discussing the Jambos’ 2-1 win over Motherwell at the weekend, heaped praise on the two-goal striker as well as on-loan Light Blues winger Alex Lowry as “the difference”, with one already a Rangers man and the other backed to join him.

McGinn said (43m 10s): “I know Rangers’ accounts came out in the last week, and the spending over the summer that happened, and you just think imagine if they’d bought him instead of Cyriel Dessers.

“I don’t think Celtic would be five or eight points clear, however you look at it, I don’t think they’d be that clear. Lawrence Shankland would have scored the goals to make it more competitive than it is at the minute.

“I think he’s ready to make that next move, his one big move before he starts to wind down.”

Walker added: “He was the difference, but the other player who was the difference was Alex Lowry, he just gave you something different. He gave you a pass, gave you a bit of skill, a moment where he’d beat a man when you didn’t expect him to get out of a tough situation.

“Lowry and Shankland were the match-winners for Hearts.”

Host Paul Cooney then said: “If I was one of the owners of Rangers I’d be saying, ‘Wait a minute, Andy Walker and Stephen McGinn have just said Alex Lowry, outstanding, he’s a Rangers player, why is he somewhere else?’

“And also your point about Lawrence Shankland. We were asking for near on two years, ‘Why did Rangers, or Celtic at the time, not come in for Lawrence Shankland?’ They paid £4.8million for Dessers, and I’m not knocking the big guy, he might come good.”

Walker replied: “You’ll remember, this was put to Michael Beale at some point and he said, ‘I don’t see anyone in Scotland who’s better than what I’ve got here,’

“He’s perfectly entitled to his view but us having been here for a number of years and knowing what Lawrence Shankland can do [know better].”

Bring them in

Lowry’s loan looks to be having the desired effect this term, after a year or more in the wilderness after he broke through with such potential under Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

Given the lack of obvious alternatives earlier this season in the wake of Ryan Kent, Fashion Sakala and Ianis Hagi leaving, he might have been able to have that impact for Rangers, just as Ross McCausland has been allowed to do since Philippe Clement replaced Beale.

But in the circumstances the young Scot may be best served remaining in Edinburgh for the season before coming back to Glasgow as a fully-formed SPFL player.

Shankland on the other hand is one that Clement could surely do with as a matter of priority, and the club increasingly look like they should have gone for him in the summer if not earlier.

The chorus of voices suggesting that a January move might be on the cards keeps growing as the winter window approaches, but that alone won’t make a deal happen.

Rangers have to find the cash for it, which is easier said than done in light of the accounts and the summer spend, and convince Hearts to part with him, but it certainly seems like it would help generate a title race in the second half of the campaign if they can get it done.

In other Rangers news, Graham Spiers exclaimed “goodness me” at Swiss Ramble’s “sobering” financial analysis.