Barry Ferguson is shocked by Ibrox contract shambles

Barry Ferguson is shocked that Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos are in the final eight months of their Ibrox contracts.

Perhaps if he realised that no club was interested in signing either player in the summer the situation might be clearer to the former Alloa boss.

Allowing two regulars to run down their contracts is one of a number of problems that the Ibrox club have to deal with as their horrendous trading over the last few transfer windows kicks in.

When Giovanni van Bronckhorst named his side for the home tie against Napoli last month there were just two changes from the team that lost the 2019 League Cup Final to Celtic.

Ross Wilson’s recruitment has been a disaster with players like Rabbi Matondo, Fashion Sakala, Scott Wright and Malik Tillman unable to get in the side in front of Kent and Scott Arfield.

Antonio Colak is the first striker in five seasons to get regular matches since the arrival of Morelos.

Unable to bring in replacements the club has been forced to keep players beyond their shelf-life with minimal interest in two of the players that started away to Napoli in midweek.

Discussing the shambles on Go Radio, Football Scotland reports Ferguson saying:

Two players (Kent and Morelos) – when they go into the final 18 months or 12 months of their contracts, if they aren’t going to sign then you can get a fair transfer fee back for them.

Now? I think the players are in control of the situation because come January, if Rangers are looking to get a couple of million for both of them, one of them might say: ‘No, I don’t fancy that and I’ll wait until the summer and go on a free transfer’.

If a club is willing to pay whatever they’re willing to pay, they would probably get part of that as their contract if they waited until the summer.

So I don’t know why it’s happened. The only people who can tell you the reasons are the people in the boardroom or Giovanni. I’m shocked that they’ve let it go this long.

A fair price of £5-7m two years ago wouldn’t have gone down well with Ibrox fans who are still puzzled that Joe Aribo left for £6m two months after scoring in a European final.