Rangers handed Ipswich Town a goalscorer and £4m profit: View | OneFootball

With over 100 goals during the course of his career, Martyn Waghorn has been a regular on the scoresheet in the EFL over the past decade and a half, with 10 separate clubs all making the most of his services.

After starting out his footballing life with Sunderland, the forward has endured a nomadic career with a former club list that reaches double figures, and currently plies his trade for Derby County in League One.

This current stint marks his second coming with the Rams, having moved to Pride Park from Ipswich Town in the summer of 2018, for a fee believed to be in the region of £5 million.

That was at a time when the striker was at the peak of his powers, having established himself as a top class striker with a goal-laden spell at Rangers in Scotland, leaving Town to profit from his prolific nature in front of goal both on the pitch and in the pocket.

While coming through the ranks at Sunderland as a youngster, Waghorn enjoyed loan spells at Charlton Athletic and Leicester City, and was starting to demonstrate his natural ability for finding the back of the net while still a teenager.

12 goals in 43 league matches for the Foxes tempted them into a £3 million move for the striker in 2010, although the chances soon dried up once he made the move permanent; culminating in a loan move to Millwall, before being sent packing for Wigan Athletic.

After such a promising start to his career, the forward was scrambling around for form at the DW Stadium, so it must have been a massive relief for Rangers to come calling in the summer of 2015, with the Glasgow side commanding his services on their ascent back through the Scottish football pyramid.

The Ibrox side had been banished to the fourth division for financial irregularities and were back in the second tier when they gave Waghorn the call; allowing the frontman to have the most prolific season of his career to date once he made the move north of the border.

A 28-goal season saw his stock rise exponentially over the course of the following campaign, before rattling in another 16 upon his side’s return to the top tier, leaving no doubt about his credentials as a clinical marksman.

Ipswich were keen to get a piece of the action, and parted with a reported £1 million to make him theirs in the summer of 2017, and he immediately repaid that investment with a superb season in front of goal.

16 strikes to Waghorn's name in his debut season made him the top scorer for the club in the league that campaign, with Mick McCarthy’s side comfortably sitting in mid-table by the end of the campaign.

Four goals in his first three league matches would have immediately endeared himself to the Portman Road faithful, with a brace against Millwall earning his side a dramatic 4-3 victory, as well as netting the winner away to Barnsley on his EFL debut for the club.

So often Waghorn became the man to get the Suffolk side out of jail with crucial strikes; whether he was steaming away from the backline or pouncing on a loose ball in the box, he was always on hand to put the ball in the back of the net.

It’s hard to remember the iteration of Ipswich Town that were perennial Championship also-rans, with a series of mid-table finishes seeing them compete in the second tier for 17 straight seasons before their fall into League One in 2019.

The Tractor Boys of old were a far cry from today, with just a single play-off campaign to show for 14 years worth of efforts in the second tier, leaving star players like Waghorn ready to be picked off by sides with loftier ambitions at will.

Ipswich Town made a significant profit on Martyn WaghornDerby County were one of those teams half a decade ago, with the Rams looking to go one better than a failed play-off campaign the season before, and earmarked Town’s marksman as the man to finish the job in the following campaign.

With a £5 million fee on the table, it resembled a huge profit from just one year’s investment into the goal-getter, leaving the Tractor Boys eager to cash in, and thank Waghorn for the memories.

They got goals galore and made a pretty penny, so Ipswich will think of the situation as a good bit of business.

As for Derby, another play-off campaign ended in defeat, with Waghorn netting 13 goals en route to the end of season showdown at Wembley.

Spells at Coventry City and Huddersfield Town soon followed for the front-man, before returning to County at the age of 33 last summer, having only joined on a trial basis because he played in Craig Forsyth's testimonial - subsequently impressing Paul Warne in the dugout.

Waghorn was never as prolific as he was after he left Portman Road though, but his one and only season in Suffolk certainly made the Tractor Boys a lot of profit for what they got.