Conor Coady To Rangers ON: but there’s a big catch for the Premier League Stopper | OneFootball

The Conor Coady to Rangers story took a couple of twists recently, which gave some hope to signing the Leicester player permanently, while also giving a little speck of bad news in there too. As we know, the transfer trail towards the 32-year-old stopper has not gone cold, and it is understood that the centre-back does have interest in joining Rangers on a permanent basis, with his being relegated now to the Championship.

He would be a transfer, not a free agent, because there is one year left in his deal, but he does not want to play in the Championship from what we understand, and consequently the idea of moving Conor Coady to Rangers, to a club the size of Rangers very much appeals to him at this stage of his career. According to Yahoo Sport, Coady’s potential move could solve a number of long-standing squad issues.

However, the big problem being reported is that he would not be registered in time for Panathinaikos. Quite simply, the deal cannot be done because the time limit is nigh. He would also therefore not be eligible for the second leg either, which means that Rangers would be denied an alpha defender of his quality, as Ibrox Noise pointed out.

So that is a definite problem, even if we do manage to capture him, because although Ibrox Noise gives Rangers very little chance of actually getting to the league stage proper, we have to. We have to get there due to the finance, which we discussed earlier in a recent entry. The money on offer is absolutely essential, and a player like Coady at the back would very much help even if he himself doesn’t have experience of the Champions League. The prospect of pairing him with Djiga was also mentioned by Ibrox Noise.

That said, having Conor Coady to Rangers, him in the team is probably more important than getting him there in time for the Champions League, because if we want to have anything like a robust and reliable defence, then he alongside fellow Premier League man Nasser Djiga would be a pretty solid back line. We at Ibrox Noise would endorse that. We’d be quite happy with that. It would be certainly good enough for the Premiership.

But in terms of Europe, in terms of the Champions League, Djiga alone isn’t enough, unless of course John Souttar is. It’s all a question of balance. Our optimism against Panathinaikos is very, very low, because Russell Martin has never managed at that level. He’s never managed a club the size of Rangers, and we have one preseason win against the mighty Dunfermline in a bounce match. It is not the best start from the manager.

The players are coming in, but we don’t have the robust defence that we need to build the team around. We have something, but it’s not enough yet. And we’re not even sure what this manager sees as being our best defence.

As for Coady, the sooner we can get him, the better. He would be a really good signing, the second such of this window. But nevertheless, time, as always, will tell.