Confirmed: Rangers transfer budget available for Clement to spend in January

Philippe Clement will have money to spend in the January transfer window at Rangers, John Gilligan has confirmed.

Speaking to Sky Sports Scotland on 24 September the interim Ibrox chairman insisted the manager will be backed even if he records more poor results, and that backing will also be financial when the market opens in the New Year.

The Belgian was restricted by having to sell in order to buy during a frustrating summer window, but while Gilligan says exits will help they aren’t necessarily a requirement if additions are to be made.

Asked if there would be money to spend he replied: “Yeah, there will be”.

On the sell-to-buy situation he added: “Any manager in any football club, if you can sell and make a profit then it helps towards the buying. It doesn’t depend on it but it certainly adds to it and enhances the whole opportunity of improving, so it’s a bit of both.”

Rangers chairman confirms transfer cash after John Bennett exit

It sounds like the situation in the winter market will be much the same as it was in the summer, where the club would probably argue it did make money available.

The problem was it wasn’t anywhere near enough to overhaul the squad entirely, and the timing of it becoming available was later than the manager would have wanted.

Rangers spent £1.5million on Robin Propper [Daily Record, 2 August], around £2.5m on Hamza Igamane [Scottish Sun, 22 June], £3.4m on Nedim Barjami [Sky Sports, 30 August], £800,000 for 80 per cent of Jefte’s rights [Vene Casegrande, 24 May], made Mohamed Diomande’s loan permanent for £4.5m [Rangers Review, 26 January], while they are set for a tribunal over compensation to Aberdeen for Connor Barron [Daily Record, 12 September].

Against the fees received for selling Sam Lammers for £2.5m rising to £4m [Anthony Joseph, 26 July], Todd Cantwell for up to £650,000 [4th Official, 31 August], Connor Goldson for £1.4m [Derek Clark, 30 July] and Scott Wright for £300,000 [Sky Sports, 29 August], that is more money going out than coming in.

But when Celtic outspent the Gers by a long way and have more cash coming in all the time from the Champions League there will surely need to be more work done to strengthen.

And it will be over three months before Clement will even get the opportunity to bolster his options so he has to concentrate on improving what he has got first.

The likes of Propper and Bajrami haven’t been met with universal acclaim so far so unless they settle into a run of form the cash to spend in January will need to bring a greater return on investment.

In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart has scoffed at the impact of a key new signing, to the dismay of his fellow pundit.

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