Rangers must be careful with Dujon Sterling’s new contract | OneFootball

As we all know Rangers favourite Dujon Sterling signed a new extension to his existing four-year deal, in a contract which rather resembles the new (unnecessary) deal given to his manager Philippe Clement.

Sterling was already signed till 2027, he wasn’t going anywhere unless big money was offered, and we’re not quite sure why the club has started repeating the old tactic of rewarding players with wage rises and fat contract extensions when they weren’t really necessary.

Fans are understandably (mostly) happy with the news, and Sterling himself will be thrilled to get a wage hike – the former Chelsea man was already on around £20,000pw, that will be closer now to £30,000pw.

We cannot criticise the message to Sterling that he’s a top asset at the club – we agree totally and he’s not a player we want to lose under any circumstances. He’s a top midfielder especially when used as one.

But we do urge caution at the return to the old ‘rewarding’ mentality of the board and ex-managers which saw Rangers players regularly being given fat well-paid contracts on top of their existing deals which made selling them almost impossible.

We lost Barisic, Lundstram, Jack, Roofe, Kent and Morelos for nothing, because many of them had been given extensions and rewards, and no one was taking it on. Big multimillion pound players lost for zero.

We don’t see how this is different, with no disrespect to Sterling at all.

We feel it wasn’t completely necessary, but we do agree that we want the boy to feel like he matters. He describes Rangers as his home and we do want him to feel secure here.

Balancing this isn’t easy – Rangers did get (low ball) offers for Sterling, and they know bigger ones will come if his importance and performances continue to grow – tying him down for longer and on a better wage makes it both harder to buy him, but harder to lose him. And only a big fat offer would be enough now.

So while it’s a risky act doing the old ‘fat new contract’ tactic, it does now mean Rangers may just get big money for Sterling one day.

Either way, it’s one we hope works out.