Rangers have been dealt a major transfer blow over Ibrox academy striker Rory Wilson…
What’s the talk?
According to Rangers sources speaking to Football Insider, the attacker has told the club that he wants to depart from Glasgow in the summer and continue his career elsewhere.
The report claimed that unnamed Premier League ‘big guns’ are interested in signing him, with the player rejecting a fresh contract offer from Rangers recently. English teams are unable to give him a professional contract until next year but can take him on a scholarship deal with the option to become a pro when the time comes.
Gilmour repeat
Ross Wilson is now in grave danger of repeating the club’s big Billy Gilmour disaster with his 16-year-old namesake.
The Scotland midfielder left Ibrox as a teen to join Chelsea in England and he has come on leaps and bounds since moving south of the border.
Transfermarkt currently value Gilmour at a whopping £10.8m almost five years on from his move to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2017. He was valued at £2.7m in 2020 and Transfermarkt cites his move to Chelsea as being worth £1.53m – well short of what he is worth now.
The 20-year-old has been capped 11 times by Scotland’s first team and is currently on loan at Norwich in the Premier League. This shows that he is making great strides as a player, but Rangers will not benefit from it as they lost him at under-17 level.
Rory Wilson now looks set to be the next big talent to fall through their grasp. He has found the back of the net a sensational 47 times at youth level for club and country this season, suggesting that the 16-year-old predator has immense potential, having scored at a phenomenal rate throughout the campaign.
Rangers have already been burned by Gilmour’s progression since leaving the club, and having it happen a second time with Wilson would be a huge disaster. It would mean that the Glasgow giants potentially miss out on another huge payday in the future, as they will not be able to sell the forward at a point when his value is similar to Gilmour’s £10.8m.
The recent club-record sale of Nathan Patterson highlights the benefit of keeping top talent and bringing them through into the first team before selling them further down the line. This is why Ross Wilson must now do everything in his power to change the teenager’s mind and get him to remain at Ibrox, potentially bolstering Gio van Bronckhorst’s team in the years to come.
AND in other news, Rangers played a masterclass over Ibrox “dafty” whose value plummeted 50% in one year…