Ranking Rangers' top 10 worst signings of all time | OneFootball

Highlights

While they're one of the two biggest football clubs in Scotland, Rangers aren't immune to making a pretty terrible signing every once in a while. In fact, they've made some really woeful mistakes in the transfer market. They've blown serious money on some proper wasteful spells.

Whether it was disastrous loan spells or blowing big money on players who didn't even come close to paying them back, there have been some real stinkers and, for our money, these are the 10 worst signings in Rangers history.

10 Aaron Ramsey

Appearances: 13 - Goals: 2

Considering his star power when he joined Rangers, Aaron Ramsey was looked at as a major coup for the club when he moved to Scotland on loan. After all, he'd spent the majority of his career playing for Arsenal and Juventus, so to land his services was a major victory. Unfortunately, the move was much better in theory than it was in practice and the Welshman's tenure with the side was actually a big disappointment.

It's not that he was terrible by any means, but the club were paying a HUGE chunk of the midfielder's wages during his spell in Scotland, and he just wasn't quite worth that sort of money. He played 13 games for the team, scored two goals and missed a decisive penalty as Rangers lost the Europa League Final to Eintracht Frankfurt through a penalty shootout. Considering he was on £200,000 a week, this was a poor transfer.

9 Michael Ball

Appearances: 67 - Goals: 2

In 2001, £6.5m was a lot of money to spend on a player, but that's the figure that Rangers paid for Michael Ball back then after the full-back had a solid Premier League career with Everton. The Toffees were going through some financial hardships at the time and cashed in on the defender, but his time in Scotland was a major disaster.

After paying such a large amount of money, the club would have wanted Ball to lock down the left-back position for the foreseeable future, but it didn't pan out that way. First, he controversially swore at his manager Dick Advocaat in one of his first games for the team after he was substituted. Then, he suffered a major injury and was sat on the sideline for over 18 months. He eventually returned to the side and played 32 league games during the 2003-04 season, but that was as good as it got. Following just 16 league games over the next two seasons, he left for just £500,000. A £6m loss after just 55 league games. Yikes.

8 Joey Barton

Appearances: 8 - Goals: 0

After Joey Barton's spell at Burnley seemed to rejuvenate his career, he moved to Rangers and the general consensus was that he'd do well for the club. He famously revealed that he was going to Scotland with the intent of being one of the Scottish Premiership's very best players. That certainly didn't happen, though.

He couldn't quite find his feet in Scotland and things didn't go well. Despite signing a two-year deal, he played just five times for the clu and stunk the place out in that time. It didn't take long for the controversy that always surrounded his career to follow him to Scotland too, and he was banned for three weeks by Rangers after an argument with teammate Andy Halliday in training. In November 2016, just months after joining the side, he was released. Shocking move.

7 James Beattie

Appearances: 7 - Goals: 0

Off the back of 24 Premier League appearances one year earlier, the general consensus was that James Beattie still had a lot to offer when Rangers signed him for £1.4m in 2010. The move to Scotland should have reinvigorated him, but instead, it was a massive failure.

The former Everton man just couldn't quite cut it with the club, and they quickly realised that he wasn't up to delivering for them in any way, shape or form. After just seven league appearances, he was loaned to Blackpool and then never made another appearance for Rangers.

6 Fran Sandaza

Appearances: 19 - Goals: 2

It wasn't just his poor performances during his time with Rangers that made Fran Sandaza a terrible signing, but the way in which he left the club too. Brought in as the club were forced to start again in the third division of Scottish football following their administration, he was coming off the back of an incredible season with St Johnstone.

He'd scored 18 goals in 31 appearances for the Scottish Premiership side, but dropped down divisions to join Rangers and somehow got worse. He scored just two league goals for the club in 14 appearances and was very famously duped into admitting he was only at the side for the money during a prank call. He was suspended and then sacked shortly afterwards. What a disaster.

5 El Hadji Diouf

Appearances: 22 - Goals: 2

El Hadji Diouf has never had the greatest reputation. Trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes, but that didn't stop Rangers from taking a chance on the winger and loaning him from Blackburn Rovers. He'd very famously spat at Celtic fans in the past, so would have immediately endured himself to the Rangers faithful, but he was pretty terrible once he got onto the pitch.

Suspensions, confrontations and fines were about the only noteworthy incidents that came out of Diouf's time in Scotland, a testament to how poor he was.

4 Carlos Pena

Appearances: 14 - Goals: 5

Carlos Pena actually managed to score five goals during his time at Rangers, but he was in the club's first team for such a brief amount of time that the £3m move for him has to be considered a bad one. Signed in 2017, he moved from Guadalajara and had a decent reputation back home in Mexico, but that didn't translate to his time in Scotland.

The midfielder didn't quite mesh well with Rangers and the club gave up on him almost immediately. He was loaned out to Cruz Azul after making just 12 league appearances in Scotland and would never play for the side again. His contract was terminated in February 2019, less than two years after his move.

3 Daniel Prodan

Appearances: 0 - Goals: 0

After a stellar year with Atletico Madrid, Rangers rushed to sign Daniel Prodan in the summer of 1998 for just over £2m. The issue was the fact they rushed into the deal, though, failing to complete a proper medical on the defender. If they had, they might not have gone through with the deal as Prodan spent the entirety of his time in Scotland injured and never played a single game for Rangers.

They even tried to sue Atletico due to the situation, but eventually backed down and simply released him in 2001. £2.2m for three years and he didn't play a single game. Talk about a bad investment.

2 Jordan Rossiter

Appearances: 10 - Goals: 1

It's hard to really blame Rangers too harshly for taking a chance on Jordan Rossiter once his time at Liverpool came to an end. The youngster was considered a promising young prospect during his tenure at Anfield, so a move to Scotland could have been the catalyst that sent his career to the next level.

Except it wasn't, and he was never up to standard and played almost no games for the team over the course of four years. The fact they paid £500,000 for the midfielder, who went on to play just 10 league games and score one goal is pretty poor. Loan spells at Bury and Fleetwood Town failed to convince Rangers he was worth keeping around and in 2020, he joined the Cods on a permanent deal. It was a risk worth taking, but one that certainly didn't pay off.

1 Filip Sebo

Appearances: 23 - Goals: 2

It's a true testament to how bad a signing was when the player's name becomes a term used for when someone did something poor on the football field. That's exactly what happened with Filip Sebo, whose name would ring out around schools in Scotland whenever a child would miss badly with a shot.

He signed for Rangers for £1.85m in 2006 and made 24 league appearances that year. He was brought in to score goals, and he just didn't do the job, finding the back of the net just twice. It was disastrous form from the player, and he was gone almost as quickly as he came. A loan spell at Valenciennes the next year led to a permanent move to the French side and his torrid time in Scotland was quickly put behind them. Fortunately, Rangers actually managed to recoup a large chunk of the money they'd spent on the striker, selling him for £1m. So it's not all bad, in fairness.

Check out the table below to see the stats for all 10 of Rangers' worst signings during their time at the club.