Kris Boyd names 11 Rangers players, including James Tavernier, who may depart Ibrox if Philippe Clement has his way.

Kris Boyd names 11 Rangers players, including James Tavernier, who may depart Ibrox if Philippe Clement has his way.

Kris Boyd has highlighted 11 Rangers players who might depart the club this summer if Philippe Clement gets his way during the transfer window. The former striker has called for a “clearout” at the club this summer, after Celtic nearly won their 12th league title in 13 seasons with an Old Firm victory on Saturday, May 11, with Clement saying he expects many changes in the transfer window.

And, while discussing the squad situation live on Sky Sports before of the Gers’ 5-2 win over Dundee (14 May), Boyd expounded on his comments and mentioned a number of players who may leave if the manager gets his way, including captain James Tavernier and talisman Todd Cantwell. “I think obviously John Lundstram is one that he’s spoken about that he didn’t want his contract to run down in the past,” he stated. “Lundstram has played practically every minute of every game since Philippe Clement took over.

Leon Balogun is another character that, in my opinion, is fairly satisfied to come in and play a few games before leaving, which is necessary at times. “Aside from that, [Oscar] Cortes, I’m not sure how much the loan charge would be, but the rest is quite tough to present a case for keeping.

Kemar Roofe’s injury record, Ryan Jack’s injury record. Ryan Jack in terms of the Scottish players, you might have to try and look after him, [Zak] Lovelace is a young boy, but these guys are out of contract. It’s the next step, there are a lot more who are still under contract that Philippe Clement will be trying to move on as well.

“There’s loads of players there, where they’re under contract, but the thing is now with Rangers not winning the league, you might have to lose players who you don’t want to lose.”

The club have got some huge transfer decisions to make this summer, with cash needing to be raised in order to strengthen the squad but also the squad needing to be bolstered with depth.

“I mean when you look at [Ianis] Hagi, [Sam] Lammers, [Jose] Cifuentes, [Alex] Lowry, they’ve all been out on loan and not really done it. What does the future hold for them?

“You’re then looking at [Tom] Lawrence, [Ben] Davies who have hardly played. Lawrence’s injury record, [Todd] Cantwell there’s questions about him. [Kieran] Dowell as well.

That means the floor of the squad needs to be raised as well as the ceiling of the squad, but the priority must be to improve depth by bringing in top players and getting rid of the ones who aren’t good enough. The issue with selling stars like Cantwell and Tavernier, who are regulars and have great experience, is that if they’re not replaced adequately then the squad risks going backwards. However the difference is that those fringe players who aren’t good enough are highly unlikely to be able to justify a decent transfer fee, and that will make it harder to strengthen.

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