Pressure piles up at Ibrox over contract refuseniks

The pressure is on at Ibrox to settle the contract situations of Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent. 

With their contracts expiring at the end of the season and no interest in signing either player Ross Wilson is expected to come up with more transfer magic. 

If both players are at Ibrox in the autumn they will cast a shadow over Giovanni van Bronckhorst as he tries to put together a new look squad that currently consists of three players costing £8m in transfer fees, two free agents and a loan deal for Bayern Munich starlet Malik Tillman. 

After raking in Dembele Dollars for Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey it has been an underwhelming recruitment drive even with the usual level of media hype. 

Spelling out the realities in the Daily Record, Keith Jackson explains: 

While Postecoglou has moved heaven and earth to sign up last season’s star turns on permanent contracts, Van Bronckhorst is currently overseeing the sort of recruitment drive the big Aussie had to go through this time last summer.

So far only Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey have departed from last season’s squad but if Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent were to follow them out of the door then suddenly Van Bronckhorst’s starting line-up would be completely transformed in the space of just one window. 

When he completes the signing of Turkish left back Ridvan Yilmaz in the next 24 hours, Van Bronckhorst will have added a total of seven new faces to his group with John Souttar, Antonio Colak, Tom Lawrence, Rabbi Matondo, Mailk Tillman and Ben Davies already in place. 

After Saturday’s defeat against Spurs, the Dutchman declared himself perfectly content with his lot. For now. He also carefully added in a caveat which suggested there may be more work still to do if he ends up being relieved of the services of Morelos or Kent – or both – at some point in the next six weeks 

With no credible reports of contract talks going on for Morelos and Kent the pressure is on to get rid of both wages over the next five weeks. That however is dependent on the players fancying the exit option against being free agents in less than 12 months time. 

Morelos hasn’t played since March 20 due to injury which is unlikely to finally tempt an offer to be made for the Colombian while Kent’s miserable goal return won’t impress any club in the EPL. With every airing the ‘Leeds set for Kent swoop’ with tales of testing resolve at Ibrox becomes less and less credible.