While Leon Balogun’s new deal silences the questions surrounding one Rangers players’ future, uncertainty continues to hang over the head of many of his Ibrox team-mates.
When Abdallah Sima addressed the Rangers supporters following Saturday’s heartbreaking Scottish Cup final defeat to Old Firm rivals Celtic, was it a ‘goodbye’ or more of a ‘see you later’? That is yet to be determined, the Brighton and Hove Albion loanee keen to return but currently stuck in limbo.
Ryan Jack and John Lundstram, meanwhile, will be free-agents in July. And the longer the silence goes on, the more likely it will seem that the duo will follow long-serving left-back Borna Barisic out the door.
Barisic is expected to join Trabzonspor.
The Turkish Super Lig side’s head coach, Abdullah Avci, indicated last week that Lundstram will be sharing a dressing room with the Croatian again next term, albeit on the banks of the Black Sea rather than the blue side of Glasgow.
“We are working intensively regarding the transfer (of Lundstram),” Avci said after Trabzonspor lost their own domestic cup final to Besiktas.
“There will be information about him soon.”
Big changes at Rangers this summer
The message to Krasnodar supporters awaiting updates about their own potentially departing midfield talent feels pretty similar. According to Russian publication MetaRatings, there should be some clarity on what the future holds for Eduard Spertsyan after this weekend.
HITC reported in April that Rangers had been made aware of the silky Armenia international’s availability. But with a price-tag set in the region of £13 million and with clubs higher up the food chain interested, Rangers hopes look slim even without mentioning the difficulties that would arise should a UK-based club attempt to strike a big-money deal with a club plying their trade in Russia during the Ukraine conflct.
MetaRatings add that Borussia Dortmund see Spertsyan as a potential successor for the bonafide club legend that is Marco Reus. Dortmund are expected to discuss a deal for the 24-year-old playmaker after Saturday’s Champions League final with Real Madrid, a reminder of the sheer size of the task Rangers would face attempting to lure Spertsyan to Ibrox.
“I don’t know yet,” a disappointed Spertsyan toldMatch TV when quizzed about his next step after Krasnodar finished narrowly shy of Zenit St Petersburg at the top of the Russian Premier League.
Ibrox move feels unlikely for Dortmund target
With 11 goals and seven assists – his box-crashing talents earning comparisons with a young Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard – Spertsyan was named the Midfielder of the Year at Russia’s end of season awards. He only missed out on the Player of the Year award to Dynamo’s Konstantin Tyukavin.
That, however, was little consolation to a man who craves not individual honours but the biggest trophies in Russian football.
“I didn’t really have any tears (but) I was rather upset,” adds Spertsyan, while indicating that he may opt to stay put at Krasnodar until he can guide his beloved club to silverware.
“Hard to say (what went wrong in the title race). There were many times where we lost points when we shouldn’t have. Only at the end do you think that everything could have turned out differently.
“We missed our last chance.”
Rangers, still mourning the loss of the Premiership title and the Scottish Cup, will know how Spertsyan is feeling.
