'Just Incredible' - Furious pundit explodes at 7-figure Rangers transfer gamble as Koppen destroyed

Nils Koppen has been hammered by Kris Boyd for his control of the Rangers recruitment while Philippe Clement has been in charge.

The Sky Sports pundit used his Scottish Sun column on 31 October to launch a furious broadside against the struggling Ibrox boss, joining the chorus of voices expecting the sack, before turning his attentions on the head of recruitment who he insists has nothing on his record to justify such a role.

The summer transfer window proved a frustrating one as the Gers struggled to spend money without offloading senior players, and in the context of tight finances Boyd is aghast at the signing of young strike Hamza Igamane, 21, as an “incredible” gamble.

Boyd said: “I would also like to know how someone like Nils Koppen managed to manoeuvre his way from being a scout to head of recruitment at Rangers.

“This is a guy with ZERO credentials for that job and yet he seems to be the one calling the shots on transfers. That’s something that I find baffling.

“There have been transfers done in the last couple of windows that have left me scratching my head. To pay £1.8m for Hamza Igamane is just incredible.

“With very little finances to spend, you can’t afford to take gambles. The supporters are seeing through all this now and that’s why they’re rightly up in arms.”

Kris Boyd outraged at Rangers signing Hamza Igamane

Recruitment at Ibrox has increasingly been exposed as a major part of the drop off in the past few seasons, so Koppen is far from alone in taking flack for it.

Rangers have all too often overpaid and undersold while seemingly going for the wrong players, and unfortunately that doesn’t seem to have come to an end with the most recent signings.

Igamane has shown flashes of being a potential star in the making, but since a hugely impressive cameo at Dundee United on 15 September it has been a much more inconsistent introduction to the Gers first team.

Clement’s argument has been that the club had to strike when they did to get him or he would have been elsewhere and out of their price range by the time he realises his major potential.

That may be true but by definition means the club spent money on the future when they need help now, and at the current rate Clement and Koppen might not be around to see it come to fruition.

And when they were looking at Lennon Miller in the summer [Football Scotland, 10 July] only to see the Motherwell sensation apparently move out of their reach already perhaps Koppen banked on the wrong talent.

Had close to £10million not been spent on Cyriel Dessers, whose form fluctuates so greatly, and Danilo, who simply can’t stay fit, the year before then perhaps an investment on Igamane would have made perfect sense.

The Moroccan scored his first goal against FCSB last week and may soon kick on, but with the season rapidly collapsing that already looks too late, especially when he wasn’t even involved with the first team for weeks after signing.

And when the likes of Robin Propper hasn’t justified his fee and Oscar Cortes has been repeatedly injured despite a lot of money being committed to him the recruitment is still clearly dogged by major missteps, in the short-term at the very least.

In other Rangers news, the club now can’t afford not to sack Clement after something “almost unheard of” emerged.

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