Rangers lumbered with £22,000pw Hagi problem | OneFootball

With Tom Lawrence and Nedim Bajrami vying for Rangers’ number 10 slot, it still leaves a slight problem for Philippe Clement in the form of Romania’s Ianis Hagi.

The situation with the ex-Genk man isn’t ideal, a £22,000pw player rotting in among the reserves, based on the wage increase Rangers would incur by selecting him for a hundredth time.

Rangers do now have options behind the striker thanks to adding the £3.5M Albanian from Sassuolo, on top of Lawrence of Wales, who did his case some good with an impressive goal in Dundee.

But where does it leave Hagi?

The simple signing of Bajrami was an indirect message to Hagi, as if another one was actually needed, that he’s unwanted.

Clement is in a predicament here – as we reported some time ago, this is all on ex-Sporting Director Ross Wilson for giving Hagi a farcical 2-year extension while he was injured, and adding in an absurd wage increase on appearance clause.

This was almost as bonkers as giving your manager himself an extension for no good reason… that was definitely a John Bennett error, out of his depth and doing three men’s jobs. We wish him well.

But getting back to the point Rangers have a £22,000pw problem on their hands, and reports he might leave by mutual consent haven’t come to fruition, because that means paying him the rest of his contract. Or at least, a hefty chunk of it.

Hagi, his agent and Clement agreed he could leave in the summer, but no good offers arrived for him (apart from 50% paycut offers from his homeland), so the man who bigged up Spain and said he wanted to stay there (before failing to impress there) is now doing the same at Rangers and saying he wants to stay here.

Remember, it wasn’t Clement who sent Hagi to Spain, it was Beale, and if Hagi was wanting to impress then-new manager Clement on his return, well, he was failing to do so with Alaves during an awful loan away.

It left Clement disinterested, and added to the wage clause appearance problem, and it’s a very messy situation.

It would be better for everyone if Hagi took a modest pay off and left. But he clearly isn’t interested in that.