Pundit Noel Whelan has slammed the Rangers board for acting too late when it has come to negotiating new deals for Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos.
Earlier on this December, chairman Douglas Park told the club’s AGM (via Sky Sports) that the idea of seeing both players sign new contracts might be ‘unattainable’.
The duo will both see their current deals expire in the summer and so will be free to move on without Rangers even receiving a transfer fee. Naturally, it’s never a good look for a club to lose to key players, but seeing them move on in such a manner will be a particularly bitter pill to swallow.
While speaking about the situation in an interview with Football Insider, Whelan said that negotiations should have begun a lot sooner than they did.
The pundit explained: “Once a players’ contract gets down to the last two years, that is when I believe negotiations need to start taking place.
“It shows the player how much they are wanted. There is security for the football club. To allow it to run down to this point, for two very important players, despite losing massive players already for big money, this is criminal.
“When you think about how old Ryan Kent is, what Morelos has done, how prolific he has been for Rangers. This, to me, is not acceptable from a football club of that size.
“To be nearly allowing to players who would bring in big money, go. It has got to be unacceptable to Rangers fans as well. The board have let the fans down.“
TIF thoughts on Ryan Kent, Alfredo Morelos and Rangers…
Over past seasons, the duo have delivered plenty of great moments for the Ibrox outfit. In just under 200 outings, Kent has 31 goals and 53 assists, while Morelos has a 115 goals in 243 games – and both were part of the side that won the SPFL back in 2021.
Clearly, they are both key players and so their talents likely would have been noted by other clubs across Europe. With that in mind, it should have been a priority to work out whether they would sign new contracts. If not, then they had to sell the pair while their value is still high.
However, in that same aforementioned AGM meeting, Park even admitted that Rangers rejected offers for both players in the past summer and so it now looks as though the duo will be leaving for free.
It certainly doesn’t suggest great planning from the powers that be.
Do you think the club should have sold Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos in the summer?
Yes
No
