Why do Rangers consistently avoid signing players from the Scottish Premiership?

Since 2012, Rangers’ trading model has been nothing short of poor. It’s not just about not selling players for big money—which, to be fair, we don’t—but one of the key issues is our consistent refusal to sign players from the Scottish Premiership. Instead, we continue to spend large sums on players from outside the league.

Walter Smith, Alex McLeish, and even Pedro Caixinha understood the importance of quality SPL-based players. It’s one of the reasons Smith and McLeish won titles and trophies. They recognized that Rangers needed players familiar with the league, the pressures at Ibrox, and the Scottish football environment.

The current buzz surrounds Motherwell’s emerging talent, Lennon Miller, who’s valued at around £7M by the club, including add-ons. We’ve discussed how Rangers are priced out by that figure, claiming we won’t show interest “at that price.”

However, in the past two transfer windows, we’ve spent £21.5M on players who haven’t lived up to expectations, instead of investing in players with experience and skills suited to our league and our club.

Where did Rangers’ transfer strategy go so wrong that the club now avoids signing quality players from within Scotland, opting instead to scout in leagues like Colombia’s Z-League?

The funds have certainly been available to sign a player like Lennon Miller over the past two windows. Mohamed Diomande and Oscar Cortes alone cost £9M, yet neither has contributed in terms of value or consistency. While we saw promise in Cortes, the reality is he’s rarely available.

Then you add in more questionable signings like Hamza Igamane for £3M, and suddenly we’ve spent £12M on players who have contributed little to nothing to the club.

Bajrami, another £3M, hasn’t been a complete flop, but he certainly hasn’t offered incredible value for money just yet.

So, why does Rangers avoid targeting the best players from SPL clubs? Sure, we’ve signed Jack and Barron from Aberdeen, Hastie from Motherwell, and Souttar from Hearts, but overall, we’ve largely steered clear of the local market.

After all these years, we still haven’t signed Lawrence Shankland, despite being fully capable of affording him.

The last player we acquired from a rival SPL club before Barron was Souttar from Tynecastle, and even then, it was a struggle; we balked at paying their reasonable £500,000 asking price to release him immediately.

Rangers’ approach to targeting, scouting, and trading within Scotland is frankly appalling.

Aside from Barron and Souttar, we have no notable Scottish players in the squad, yet every manager and scout seems focused on uncovering an unknown ‘gem’ from some obscure league.

It’s baffling.

It’s frustrating.

And it’s one of the many reasons we’re trailing so far behind Celtic.

Source: https://www.ibroxnoise.co.uk/2024/11/why-do-rangers-just-refuse-to-buy-spl-based-players/