Rangers have agreed a deal with Bologna for international centre-back Filip Helander, according to Goal journalist Nima Tavallaey.
The agreed fee is said to be £3.5million up front followed by two further annual payments of £897k.
The 26-year-old Sweden international is on his way for a medical at Rangers ahead of signing a four-year deal.
?CONFIRMED?@RangersFC agree terms with @BolognaFC1909en for Swedish International Defender #Helander.#Rangers to pay #Bologna €4m now then two annual installments of €1m each.
Player is on his way to Glasgow to undergo his medical before signing 4 year contract.#Transfers— Nima Tavallaey Roodsari (@NimaTavRood) July 11, 2019
VERDICT
This is a big outlay from Rangers. If the figures mentioned here are correct then Rangers are set to pay close to £5.3million for Helander, who should link up with Connor Goldson at the back for Steven Gerrard. That’s going to give them real presence in the box with both players coming in at over 6’3″. Helander comes with experience as well – 84 games in Serie A for Verona and Bolgna, 10 games in the Champions League and eight caps for Sweden, including all four recent Euro qualifiers. Helander was struggling at Bologna under new manager Siniša Mihajlovi – he only started five games in 2019 – but he had been a mainstay under former manager Roberto Donadoni. In terms of stats he’s got pretty similar numbers to Goldson while playing at a higher level. He has 7.27 defensive duels per 90 minutes with a 23.9% success rate, compared to 4.14/30.7% for Goldson [wyscout.com]. Goldson dominates in aerial duels winning 59.9% of 6.12 per 90 minutes with Helander winning an impressive 64.3% of 4.68. We can see the two forming a solid partnership, something that was lacking last season with Gerrard switching between Joe Worrall and Nikola Katic.