John Bennett may not fund permanent Rangers switch for Abdallah Sima after display v Celtic
Rangers supporters will be keen to forget their 2-1 defeat to Celtic incredibly quickly as Philippe Clement’s unbeaten record with the Gers came to a rather frustrating end.
The Light Blues lost the second Old Firm derby of the season on Saturday 30 December and let the chance to close the gap to the Premiership champions pass them by, with James Tavernier’s last free-kick their only real moment of quality.
Very few players in blue came away with much credit and one man who struggled more than most at Celtic Park was Abdallah Sima who failed to get involved in possession and made a huge mistake to allow the home side to take the lead.
As a corner was swung into the Rangers penalty area midway through the first half, the Senegalese international failed to clear his lines with his header, instead picking out Paulo Bernardo alone on the edge of the penalty, leading to plenty of criticism from Peter Grant.
The BBC Sport pundit slammed the Rangers man on Sportscene (30 December, 24:35) saying: “Sima’s got to do much better, but what a wonderful strike.”
Over the course of his 70 minutes of action, the 22-year-old only managed to complete five of his 11 attempted passes, finishing the clash with a miserable completion rate of only 45 per cent [Fotmob].
Only one of Sima’s 25 touches in the game came in the opposition’s penalty area and he only managed to register one attempt on Joe Hart’s goal that failed to even test the England international as his effort flew well past the crossbar.
Defensively, the wide-man did get involved and came out on top in four of his seven duels both in the air and on the ground, but he failed to even enter a single tackle as the game seemed to just pass him by at Ibrox.
Sima is currently only on loan at Ibrox from Brighton and Hove Albion and Rangers have no option to make the deal permanent, however, reports suggest that preliminary talks have already begun to discuss a permanent switch next summer [The Fourth Official, 7 December].
The current consensus is that the price Brighton are asking for is higher than the Light Blues are willing to pay and should Sima continue to impact some of the Gers’ biggest games of the campaign, it feels unlikely that they’ll be willing to overpay for his services.
Unless Sima manages to perform in the remaining Old Firm clashes and the crucial matches at the top of the Scottish Premiership and Europa League, James Bisgrove and John Bennett are unlikely to fork out the cash to keep him at Ibrox.
Following the AFCON, the 22-year-old may be playing for his long-term Rangers future.
In other Rangers news, one BBC Sport pundit has urged the Light Blues to pay the fee required to sign Lawrence Shankland after the defeat to Celtic