Shankland confirms Hearts exit following Rangers’ summer bid

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Ibrox Noise

·23 November 2024

Shankland confirms Hearts exit following Rangers’ summer bid

Hearts captain and long-time Ibrox target Lawrence Shankland has today confirmed the news Rangers’ board has been waiting for:

He will be leaving Hearts for free after not signing a new deal.

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Yes, Rangers’ favourite price, free, is now Shankland’s pricetag after he announced he is not staying in Edinburgh beyond the summer, and may be a precontract in January.

He said:

“Right now, at this moment in time, my contract will be finishing. I won’t have one at Hearts, so that indicates that you move on. That’s the situation where we’re at with the club. That’s where we left it. There is no contract on the table. That was an agreement we were happy to leave at that point. Both of us accepted it and moved on. That’s where it’s been since then. Regarding the contract, there’s not been any contact [since]. I think right now, as it stands, both the club and myself are comfortable where we’re at. In terms of talks, we’ll move forward and see how the next couple of months go. But more importantly than that, obviously everybody’s been concentrating on trying to improve things on the pitch. Once that’s done, I imagine we can worry about things off it.”

‘Both of us accepted it and moved on’ – aka there will be no offer, because Hearts can’t afford him.

It’s funny really, his CEO Andrew McKinlay, heavily linked with the vacant Rangers position, claimed strongly that he was happy to negotiate with Shankland and wanted him to stay, but this was clearly lip service.

Shankland hasn’t been interested this season, his and Hearts’ form crashed after he didn’t get the exit in the summer to Ibrox that he wanted, so his ‘heart’ hasn’t been in it this campaign. Of course the usual sceptics in Rangers’ support claim his form this season shows how bad he is etc, not looking into why it’s bad.

Either way, he will leave Hearts and if Rangers are to sign him, a precontract in January is prudent.

Rangers did submit an offer in the last window, but Hearts got greedy and wouldn’t accept less than £3M. Rangers bid £1.5M. And this left an unhappy player, Hearts losing out on getting a fee, and Rangers losing out on their man.

Is he destined to become our player in 2025?

He should, yes.