Rangers must ‘bite the bullet’ and sell top stars like Celtic – Kris Boyd
Kris Boyd has slammed the Rangers board for the way they have acted with player contracts and in the transfer window and told them to act more like Celtic.
The legendary striker was appearing on Sky Sports as a pundit before the 1-0 win over St Mirren (27 January, 12:11) and was asked about Philippe Clement’s recent comments regarding player’s contract situations at Ibrox.
And Boyd wasn’t happy about the way the club have handled situations in recent times and told the board to “protect itself” and start selling players at their peak like Celtic do to ensure they get money in and don’t end up empty handed.
“I think when you want to look back at the recruitment side, we’ve all been very vocal about it, especially when you look across the city and Celtic always seem to get it right on when to sell a player and get the money back in,” he said.
“The two that spring to mind right away would be Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos when their price was very high, the club didn’t capitalise and both of them walked out of the door for nothing.
“Philippe Clement touched on that during the week, there are another four or five players that are free to go this summer as well, and it can’t be the case. The club needs to protect itself.
“By doing that, if players are playing really well you have to just let them go sometimes. You might not get a bigger fan base or more passionate fans but there is bigger leagues who can pay players a lot more money. Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and away they go.
“Like Celtic have done, and Rangers need to get to a stage where they’re bringing players in, giving them a platform to flourish domestically and in Europe, but when the price is right sell them and get the club money in. The players that you thought were going to come in and they were going to be able to flip for money, it’s not really happened.”
Bingo
Nobody is going to like the comments inferring the club should be more like Celtic, but it’s hard to argue that they do things right in that sense and Rangers don’t.
As mentioned, the obvious examples are Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos who could easily have been sold for eight figures each in recent times. But the scenario is emerging again with several players out of contract this summer.
John Lundstram is someone the manager has already stated publicly that he wants to keep at the club while Abdallah Sima’s loan will expire and the likes of Leon Balogun, Ryan Jack, Kemar Roofe and Borna Barisic could also leave for free.
The club have to make decisions on whether they’re going to keep or sell these players much sooner to either cash in or keep their value high.
For a club in such a high position across Europe, Rangers’ board must act better and more decisively to ensure the club can really progress and improve in the coming years.
In other Rangers news, attacker drops 3/10 stinker v St Mirren.
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