Rangers will need another 10 Jack Butlands | OneFootball

It really is time for Rangers to stop shopping in Cheapo-Mart and start getting serious with summer investments.

For years, Rangers fans have had to accept the club bringing in League One kids who couldn’t get a match for Arsenal reserves, or even Bournemouth reserves, before that improved slightly and we were in for a better calibre of player.

But end of the day, last summer still saw a Coventry reject (Dujon Sterling), a pair of Norwich ones (Cantwell and Dowell) and an Atalanta dumpster fire in Sam Lammers.

Even under Philippe Clement it’s been a Wolves failure, a Danish league nobody and a promising but still Lens reject.

We really are a bit tired of our club always signing such non-entities.

Under Walter Smith we signed marquee Croats (Jelavic), quality PL players (Weir, Ehiogu), the best of Scotland (Boyd, Naismith, Thomson) and even a LaLiga regular in Cuellar.

Even Alex McLeish got us a Greek international in Kyrgiakos, a Belgian one in Buffel and of course the brilliant Boumsong himself.

Now?

It’s all fringe guff or tiny league standouts.

We’re not demanding Messi any time soon, don’t let us be ridiculous.

But for Rangers to get back to the level we need to be, quality on a par with Jack Butland must swill throughout the team.

He is pound-for-pound the highest standard ‘new’ player we’ve probably had at Rangers in many years, up there with Steven Davis and Allan McGregor. Arguably he even exceeds Greegsy for CV.

But the point is we need players of that level, not mediocrity like Jon McLaughlin – maybe unfair picking him and Scott Wright out, but the level of the likes of these two is borderline Scottish Championship, not Rangers.

And we’re sick and fed up of dross like that coming in with the usual club propaganda that this is ‘the real deal’ and fans getting excited before the reality of the mince we’ve just signed kicks in.

We didn’t want Sima, Dowell or Lammers at Ibrox Noise last season, we were incredibly underwhelmed by them all – we lucked out a little with Sima and his unexpected goalscoring, but too many other signings just fell painfully short of the level we want to get to.

We want PL-level players – that’s what this club used to have. And yes, it’s changed times, we know, but jewels like Jack Butland can be found if you scout shrewdly.

Enough Championship dross like Dowell and Lawrence, this isn’t Rangers level.

At least, not the Rangers level we need to be anything like we used to be.