Rangers have revamped the whole scouting and recruitment team with Nils Koppen heading up a department that needs to start providing Philippe Clement with more hits than misses.
A reported new approach could see more South American flair arrive in the squad with players like Oscar Cortes who was sealed in January via the TransferRoom conference.
Interestingly, an agent for Winner Mirror agency that represents promising South Americans has been seen at Ibrox, could Rangers be interested in improving Philippe Clement’s defensive options from left field.
Could Rangers consider unknown defender for Philippe Clement?
Mauro Bousquet met with Koppen at the weekend and has years of experience in serving as an intermediary for Portuguese and Italian clubs dealing with clubs from Brazil and Colombia in particular.
He opens the door for those wanting to make the move to Europe.
One such player is Gabriel Mentz, the 6ft 3inch tall Gzira United centre-half.
Who? You might say.
Maltese football isn’t exactly the elite of European football, however, there are bargains to be had across the continent and beyond, if you have the right connections.
Rangers could have set-piece solution in Gabriel Mentz
One area that Rangers have struggled this season is scoring goals from set pieces, again, against Celtic, we missed chances that could have had an impact on the end result.
Mentz has six goals and two assists in 16 league appearances this season and has also captained his side.
This is where Nils Koppen comes in and how he is planning to revolutionise Rangers transfer policy, we could also need to replace Leon Balogun and Ben Davies in the summer.
The statistics will probably show that Gabriel Mentz is a good player, but on this occasion there would need to be a lot of scouting to assess whether or not the Brazilian has the potential to step up a level or two.
From the Europa Conference League, two defeats to Lech Poznań probably aren’t enough to gauge this.
Raw qualities like speed and strength will be easy, reading the game, awareness and passing will probably be a bit harder given the standard of football he plays in.
Agents will always look for the best deal for their players and Koppen’s phone will probably be the busiest within the walls of Auchenhowie.
I wonder if Bousquet will be dialing his number over the coming weeks and months.
