As the manager discusses future plans about loan signings, the Gers are currently in the same position as they were under Abdallah Sima.
Philippe Clement is hopeful that Rangers won’t have to deal with Vaclav Cerny as their most recent loanee who left.
Since joining the Ibrox team for a season from parent club Wolfsburg, the Czech star has been playing well. Along with teammate Cyriel Dessers and Celtic captain Callum McGregor, the winger leads the Premiership scoring statistics after netting his ninth goal of the season in Wednesday’s 6-0 thumping of Kilmarnock.
However, Cerny, who is valued at £6.5 million, will return to Germany next summer since Gers officials were unable to work out a deal to purchase the 27-year-old when his loan period is up. Clement is concerned that this will put him in a similar situation to last summer, when he had to bid farewell to 16-goal forward Abdallah Sima because the Light Blues couldn’t match Brighton’s high asking price for the Senegalese flyer. With his goals, Sima has helped Champions League debutants Brest qualify for the knockout stages while on loan in France.
Indeed, I spoke with the board in June over the pay, which needed to be significantly reduced, Clement stated. We discussed a number of topics, including the necessity of having players on loan at the present.
“We don’t currently have the funds to purchase Vaclav, and we weren’t in a position to purchase Abdallah either. In order to avoid a similar situation at the end of the season, we must strive each year to have one player less on loan and one more who is an asset to the team.
“Abdallah cherished and desired to remain here. Other teams, of course, are also interested, and he makes a decision in a split second about his career, pay, and everything else. Naturally, the club wants to reduce the number of players on loan, and that is their plan for the upcoming years. However, you cannot address all of these issues in a single transfer window.
“Vaclav obviously enjoys being here; last week, he told me that he has never felt better in his career—physically, mentally, and with the team, the dressing room, the staff, the club, the supporters, and everything else. However, there will be negotiations once more because he has a deal with another team at the end of the season.
At the club’s AGM on Thursday, Clement was seated at the top table. The news that the club had managed to raise a pitiful £800,000 for the summer sales of Robby McCrorie, Todd Cantwell, Scott Wright, Sam Lammers and Connor Goldson left shareholders stunned.
The majority of supporters hoped that the amount, which was included in this year’s annual accounts, was an inadvertent blunder. James Taylor, the club’s financial head, hinted that the organisation was still paying for the mistakes made under Michael Beale’s leadership two years prior, but it was no mistake.
The poor return on their expensive signings may not have pleased the fans, but Clement acknowledged that was just the going rate for five players whose performance had declined. According to him, “every player is now the same, and there may be something to do with the wages that players were earning here.”
“You always want to increase your income rather than decrease it. Therefore, it’s possible that some players were making so much money that other teams didn’t want to pay them.
“You also have less leverage in those negotiations because it’s evident that the players weren’t very big in the market.”
Clement wants to see the Gers’ midweek confidence, which was a rare display of clinical finishing from the Ibrox lineup, repeated in Dingwall on Sunday. “We were lethal, we came a lot in the offensive third like last couple of weeks, and we were clinical in that way,” the Ibrox manager, who has welcomed Oscar Cortes and Rabbi Matondo back to full training, stated.
“We must keep going in that direction; those are our guiding principles and what we hope to achieve, but it keeps happening week after week and month after month. I want to watch football like that, so we want more nights like that.
