When drawing up a hypothetical starting XI of players Rangers could or should have signed in recent transfer windows, the challenge is not filling in the team sheet but deciding which of those to leave out, such is the number of ‘one that got aways’ connected with the Ibrox giants.
Do you go with Jarrad Branthwaite and Joseph Okumu at centre-half, or Danilho Doekhi? Should Lovro Majer get the nod in central midfield over Joey Veerman? Then there is Andreas Skov Olsen and Albert Gudmundsson, fighting for a place in the attack.
One thing is for sure, there would be a place nailed on for Lewis Ferguson.
“Ferguson was rejected at 14 by Rangers,” Bil McMurdo, the 24-year-old’s agent, told CalcioNapoli24 recently.
Rangers could have had Bologna ace Lewis Ferguson
Rangers then looked at Ferguson again a few years later, instead fulfilling his dream of playing in Serie A when he sealed a £3 million move to Bologna rather than following in the footsteps of his legendary uncle Barry.
Two years on, while Branthwaite is being lined up by Man United, while Veerman has an Eredivisie winners’ medal to look forward to, Lewis Ferguson is emerging as the driving force behind Bologna’s unexpected Champions League charge.
In fact, the former Aberdeen starlet has been so impressive over in Italy – donning the captain’s armband for Thiago Motta’s side these days – that a Juventus icon now has no qualms about labelling Ferguson the man capable of adding some much-needed horsepower to a rather one-paced Bianconeri engine room.
‘What Juventus is missing’
“In my opinion, Juve should take them both,” Alessio Tacchinardi tells Tuttosport of Ferguson and Atalanta’s Teun Koopmeiners. “This team needs midfielders who know how to score goals. And they both (can do that).”
Ferguson has six in Serie A this term, bursting into the box like prime Steven Gerrard before finishing with panache.
“(Juventus) need intense players. Players who dribble and attack the goal,” adds Tacchinardi, the six-time Serie A champion. “In my opinion, they are two Juventus players.
“I would work on prospects of this type and try to get to both Koopmeiners and Ferguson. Koopmeiners scores 10 goals in a season, Ferguson almost (as many), while Juve’s midfielders never score. That’s what Juve is missing.”
While the sample size is small – just one window so far – a fine start to the Philippe Clement / Nils Koppen era is raising hopes that Rangers’ tendency to miss out on the most exciting talents on the market may be a thing of the past.
The January arrivals of Fabio Silva, Mohamed Diomande and Oscar Cortes strapped a rocket to a side already emerging as potential title favourites, all three making an immediate impact.
