Scottish Mail on Sunday Gary Keown believes a whole host of Rangers players have seen their futures come under threat due to the club’s latest financial accounts.

Rangers are spending £64million-a-year on wages across the whole club, which is their highest ever and more than what Celtic are currently splashing out.

However, despite having the highest wage bill in their history, the Gers are underperforming and Keown believes that players like James Tavernier need to start bringing glory back to Ibrox in order to justify their wages. Otherwise, they’ll be bombed out of the club.

“The gloves are off with the likes of Tavernier, Connor Goldson, Borna Barisic, Ryan Jack and the others who have survived several regimes. This season has to serve up something considerably more substantial than recent times or they all have to leave, because the new boss isn’t – and can’t be – going anywhere soon”, said Keown in his Scottish Mail on Sunday column on 19 November (page 96).

“The likes of Kemar Roofe, Tom Lawrence and John Souttar have to prove they can get fit and stay fit. Or they have to go.

“Ben Davies has been an empty jersey since he pitched up for £4m. Same goes for other expensive arrivals such as Rabbi Matondo and Ridvan Yilmaz. Right now, Cyriel Dessers, Jose Cifuentes and Sam Lammers are following them down the same well-worn path.

“Others such as Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin need to rediscover the form they showed when they first arrived too.”

Yet another firesale?

We saw a lot of players leave Rangers in the summer just gone.

Alfredo Morelos, Ryan Kent, Allan McGregor, Filip Helander, Scott Arfield, Antonio Colak, Fashion Sakala and Glen Kamara were among the bulk of the first-teamers to leave Ibrox permanently and all of them have been mainstays of the starting line-up at some point or another in Govan.

Michael Beale was allowed to sign a lot of players to replace them but the majority of them have unfortunately failed to deliver so far.

Philippe Clement has definitely overseen an improvement; there’s not one Gers player who’s not done better since the Belgian came in to replace the Londoner.

But that’s not where the buck stops for Rangers. It’s not just about a slight improvement so that you can beat Sparta Prague in Europe or reach a Celtic-less Viaplay Cup final.

It’s about winning the top silverware.

If Rangers win the Scottish League Cup this season. Well done, we guess.

But that’s not what we’re about. We’re about beating Celtic on the pitch and in the Scottish Premiership standings.

We’re about beating them at everything and right now, even though we’re beating them for money spent on wages, that will go down as a major defeat unless Rangers come out on top in other areas.

In other Rangers news, suspicious Instagram activity by this Gers star suggests he’s unhappy with life currently at Ibrox.

This article was originally posted here