Michael Reeves
As news emerged yesterday that Glasgow Rangers were ready to make a new and improved – believed to be £2m – bid for Morgan Whittaker the questions started to be asked as to what was the price that the Swans have placed on the player’s head?
After two rejected bids for the player, Rangers are clearly making Whittaker one of their key targets of this window and reports from Scotland yesterday said that the bid has been made but the Scottish giants are awaiting a response from SA1.
Rangers have already added creative forward Todd Cantwell to their squad this month and have been linked with Belgian midfielder Nicolas Raskin. However, it becomes clearer that manager Michael Beale is a fan of Whittaker and sees him fitting in at Ibrox.
The £2m is believed (and reported) to include add-ons to take it to that £2m figure so we remain to wait and see whether that in itself is a deal that the Swans are comfortable with. The Daily Record reports that the figure that we want is supposedly higher than that but with just a few days left of the transfer window there could be room for negotiation is the belief in Glasgow.
Michael Beale was keen to dismiss talk of an increased bid yesterday but added when talking about both Whittaker and Raskin “There are a lot of good players out there and it is certainly not just those two players that are being mentioned. I do like them, the club likes them, we have been clear on that. But they play for somebody else and if they don’t want to sell they don’t want to sell. There are three or four more we are speaking to. If the deal is right now it is going to get done. If the deal is not right now we will move to the summer.”
Whittaker was recalled from his loan spell at Plymouth earlier this month and although Russell Martin said it was not with the intention to sell, most of the words used by him suggested that a recall was not his decision. And when that becomes the case it becomes pretty obvious that decisions are being made in the boardroom particularly as interest in the player would have been known if not formal.
It’s difficult to see a position right now where Morgan Whittaker is with us post the transfer deadline but the final outcome will be decided by how much hard ball we want to play.
With the Americans’ history of selling you have to think tha Whitaker will be a Rangers player before the end of the window .Despite some people’s opinion of Huw Jenkins ,Martin Morgan etc you’d have to think that the previous board would have shown patience and common sense an wanted to see Whitaker given an opportunity at the Liberty.