There’s a debate that keeps coming back around Ibrox: are we building a successful team, or are we just stockpiling assets to sell? The truth is, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. In fact, if Rangers get the balance right, winning and player trading should feed off each other.
Right now, the squad looks young in key areas, and that’s not automatically a bad thing. But young players don’t increase in value just because they’re young. They increase in value when they’re playing regularly in a settled side, learning the ugly bits of senior football, and adding medals and big-pressure minutes to their CV.
Success is the best shop window
If Rangers add experience to a youthful group, you’re not “blocking pathways” for the sake of it. You’re giving the young lads a proper framework to grow inside. A couple of hardened pros who know how to manage games, ride out sticky spells, and keep standards high can accelerate development far quicker than chucking kids into a revolving-door team.
Winning titles matters for more than bragging rights. It changes perception. It raises profile. It puts players in bigger matches and sharper environments. And when a player looks comfortable in those moments, that’s when the value jumps.
We’ve lived this before
When Walter Smith returned for his second spell, he built a side that could actually win things, and he did it by mixing quality with experience. Davie Weir is the obvious example: not a “project”, just a pro who made everyone around him better. Nobody called it a player trading model at the time, but the ingredients were there.
Look at the kind of players that came through that era: Allan McGregor, Alan Hutton, Madjid Bougherra, Carlos Cuellar, Kevin Thomson, Steven Davis, Nikica Jelavic, and the American lads. Not all were Walter’s signings, but plenty could have sat neatly inside a modern “develop and sell” approach, while the team still competed and won. If circumstances off the pitch had been different, the profit side of it is easy to imagine without needing to dress it up.
The uncomfortable comparison across the city
And yes, you can’t avoid looking over the road. It gets pointed out often that Celtic have managed to sell players well while still collecting trophies. They haven’t exactly taken seasons off to “develop” talent in peace. They’ve done it while winning, and that’s the point: success is the multiplier.
For Rangers, the target should be straightforward. Build a team that’s good enough to win now, with enough youth and upside that the club can sell smartly later. It’s not a contradiction. It’s the whole plan.
Related Articles
About Rangers News Views
Rangers News Views offers daily Glasgow Rangers coverage including match reaction, transfer analysis, SPFL context, tactical breakdowns and opinion-led articles written by supporters for supporters.
