Gio van Bronckhorst is about to discover just how much hard work lies ahead of him this summer.
The Rangers manager will return to his Auchenhowie HQ this morning and the first thing on his to-do list ought to be organising sit downs with three key players and asking director of football Ross Wilson to pull up a chair at the same time. By allowing Ryan Kent, Joe Aribo and Alfredo Morelos to enter the final year of their contracts, Wilson has placed Van Bronckhorst in an almost impossible position at the start of his first full season in charge.
Somehow the Dutchman has to persuade this trio to put pen to paper on extensions at the eleventh hour. Or he has to start preparing for life without them. And then he’ll have to keep his fingers crossed that Wilson isn’t caught with his pants down again when it comes to doing the club’s bidding in this summer’s transfer market. Because right now it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine how Van Bronckhorst might be robbed of so much talent all at once and still come out the other side of the window with his starting XI not considerably weaker than it was when he found it in the first place. To lose just one of them would be a body blow.
But if all three are about to leave the premises then Van Bronckhorst and Wilson will have an almighty task on their hands if they are serious about making it into next season’s Champions League while attempting to relieve Celtic of their domestic crown. That Aribo clocked up 57 appearances for the club last term is indicative of his enormous importance to this Rangers team.
But with the likes of Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace forming an orderly queue outside his agent’s office, it does feel as if the Nigerian international might already be on borrowed time inside Van Bronckhorst’s dressing room.
There is some good news here, however, for the Ibrox boss even if Aribo does turn out to be Premier League bound. For starters, if three or more clubs from England’s top flight are all at the table at the same time then a bidding war is likely to ensue which means Rangers might get away with allowing him to wind his contract down to this point.
If they can rake in a fee in excess of £10m for a player they bought for buttons then it can still be marked down as an astute piece of business and such a windfall will also give Van Bronckhorst a fighting chance of getting out of this window with his own ambitions for next season intact. Also, it could be that he has a replacement for Aribo already inside the building in the shape of the outrageously talented teenager Alex Lowry.
Last season was Lowry’s break-out campaign but the youngster still found game time hard to come by. Largely because of Aribo’s omnipresence in Van Bronckhorst’s side.
Having celebrated his 19th birthday just last week, it may seem like too much of a burden to expect the wispish Lowry to shoulder Aribo’s mantle as the team’s creator in chief. But the potential enormity of his ability says otherwise.
Come to think of it, there’s more than a touch of the young Ian Durrants about this kid who not only possesses the speed of thought and range of passing required to split defences open but also the close control to ghost past opponents as if the ball is glued to one of his boots.
If Lowry is given the chance to thrive on some added responsibility then he might well emerge as a major player for Van Bronckhorst over the coming months. And that would be one major problem solved.
But the manager also must hold urgent conversations with Kent and Morelos before he knows what else will be required before the new season kicks-off at the end of next month. The name of PAOK striker Antonio Colak has already been placed on Wilson’s desk at a time when Seville are believed to be preparing a low ball offer for Morelos of less than £7m.
Given that Rangers knocked back more than double that amount from French side Lille two years ago, this would be a sore one where Wilson’s professional pride is concerned. Allowing assets to depreciate to this extent can be notoriously difficult to explain around the boardroom table.
But if the Colombian has set his heart on performing in La Liga then Rangers might have to take whatever is on offer and, in that case, Van Bronckhorst will need more than just one new striker coming in the door this summer. When Morelos limped onto the sidelines last season the manager’s lack of attacking options became so crippling he ended the season with Aribo operating as a makeshift centre forward.
He certainly cannot afford to cross his fingers and hope that Kemar Roofe might get through until May without occasionally having to stop off on the treatment table. So either Morelos stays and Van Bronckhorst adds one more striker to his squad - or Morelos leaves and the manager needs two of them.
And then, perhaps toughest of all, will be finding a replacement in the event that Kent too has decided his time in this country is up. The Englishman cost around £7.5m when Steven Gerrard made him a permanent signing from Liverpool three years ago and even though his statistics in the final third could be improved, his value to the team is almost impossible to measure.
At 25 years old, Kent is only now about to enter into his prime years and the prospect of him getting better with age is something Van Bronckhorst will have to consider when weighing up what to do next with this blistering speed merchant. If Rangers chose to cash in on him now then they might be fortunate to turn a decent profit.
If they allow him to run down his contract then they’ll lose the whole lot, but Van Bronckhorst would also have to work out how much it would cost to replace a player of Kent’s quality. And that's before even stopping to think if it would even be possible to attract such a talent to Scotland’s Premiership.
Keeping hold of Kent, then, could very well be Van Bronckhorst’s biggest priority of the transfer window. Lose him now and this summer’s hard work might become overwhelming.
