Rangers captain Tav addresses Saudi Arabian Steven Gerrard links | OneFootball

James Tavernier has seemingly committed himself to Rangers after being quizzed on Steven Gerrard’s reported interest from Saudi Arabia.

The 32-year-old, up for the PFA Scotland Player of the Year award alongside team mate Jack Butland, addressed properly the potential of moving to the Middle East, and was fairly clear that he wants to remain at Ibrox.

He said:

This is the most professional response we’ve ever heard to such a question, because it doesn’t completely rule a move away, but it does suggest he is focused on Rangers and intends to stay if he gets his way.

The quote from Philippe Clement, which covered both Tavernier and team mate Connor Goldson, isn’t strictly worth much because managers ‘say’ things and 90% of it is utter hogwash. It is what is ‘needed’ to be said at the time.

And at no point did Tav explicitly reject a move away, but he came as close as it’s professionally possible to do without actually outright doing it.

Tavernier gets a fair chunk of flack over the things he says in the press, much of which is justified and ‘disappointing’, but he did play this one quite well.

Reality is money talks, if Gerrard does prepare a huge bid for him and/or Goldson we’d be very surprised if a 32-year-old footballer can turn those wages down, or Rangers can turn down a healthy financial bid for a player of his age.

But for his own part he clearly is happy at Rangers, and wouldn’t leave unless a serious bid arrives.

Thing is, in his 9 years at Rangers, no serious bid has ever come in for him, aside a £1.5M bid from Championship West Brom a million lifetimes ago.

Saudi? The rules are different there.