Ross Wilson (and Mick) left Rangers’ financials in trouble | OneFootball

There’s no getting away around the fact Rangers’ transfer window is now being massively held up by the inability of the club and the board to shift the (expensive) surplus on the wage bill.

It’s fairly simple – Rangers have a gigantic wage bill – a few men on a wage approaching around £40,000 (Danilo, Butland, Goldson) while far too many are £30,000 or more (Davies, Matondo, Tavernier) and a glut are on the £22,000 range (Cantwell, Lammers, Lawrence).

And looking at the names, how many of those have offered value for those salaries?

Yes, the club managed to free some big wages in the six players release, along with the departures of the two loanees, but as things stand, Rangers’ past diabolical management and contract structure has led to an overly-fat wage bill and players quite happy to sit on them.

Meaning Rangers can’t just go out and sign expensive and quality players, because the money distribution has to be vacated first.

Rangers have secured Igamane, Diomande, Barron, Jefte and Nsiala, and at this point we don’t know what their salaries are exactly (all now permanent captures) but we don’t think any of them come close to filling up the released players’ vacated wage.

That’s a plus.

But the downside is we still have so many players without futures at the club who are taking up big payrolls, and until we shift them it’s fairly simple:

We can’t afford to add new players at the ‘budget’ and ‘level’ we need.

We can’t get Premier League-level (or Euro top 5 league) players, because they’re expensive, and at the moment we have their future wages tied up in surplus like Lawrence, Lammers and Cantwell.

We wouldn’t expect the club to be irresponsible with cash, and to spend what we don’t have, and we have managed to free some of the expendables.

But unless Rangers free up a significant few more surplus or sell some names, the market we can sign from this summer may be a bit limited.

Thank you very much Ross Wilson and Mick Beale.