Glasgow Rangers head coach Philippe Clement is quickly learning how difficult it is to be a success at Ibrox, with the huge expectations that come along with the job.
The Belgian boss won a trophy early on in his career with Rangers, lifting the League Cup with a win over Aberdeen, but has failed to make his mark in the Scottish Premiership.
His Gers side finished three points adrift of Celtic at the end of the 2023/24 campaign and are currently five points behind their local rivals after just five matches.
Clement is not the first manager to fall short in the Premiership as winning the division is a feat that has not been achieved since Steven Gerrard moved on from Ibrox.
His replacement, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, did enjoy some success in the dugout, though, as the Dutchman won the SFA Cup and reached the final of the Europa League, only to lose on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Things could have been so different for the former Rangers player and manager if he had landed one of his reported transfer targets during his first season in charge at Ibrox – Xavi Simons.
Rangers’ reported interest in Xavi Simons
It was reported ahead of the 2022 January transfer window that van Bronckhorst wanted to bring the attacking midfielder to Glasgow to bolster his midfield.
The young gem’s contract with French giants Paris Saint-Germain was due to expire at the end of the season and Rangers were ‘leading’ the race to secure his services in January.
He was free to sign a pre-contract deal with a foreign team at the turn of the year and it was claimed that the Gers head coach wanted to build his team around the PSG youngster.
Unfortunately, Rangers were unable to strike a deal for him during the January transfer window and the midfielder ran down his contract with the Ligue 1 side before signing for PSV on a free transfer in the summer of 2022.
The Dutch giants were seemingly able to convince the youngster that they were the best place for his future, rather than Ibrox, and landed his services.
This meant that van Bronckhorst and the sporting director at the time – Ross Wilson – had to dip back into the market to find an alternative to Simons ahead of the second half of the 2021/22 campaign.
Rangers were eventually able to land another attacking midfielder before the end of the January transfer window, as they snapped up Juventus flop Aaron Ramsey on loan.
Aaron Ramsey’s Rangers struggles
The Scottish giants swooped to land the Wales international on loan until the end of the 2021/22 campaign and it was reported that they splashed out a fee of £2m to secure his services for just five months.
That was a sizeable fee to pay for a short-term loan but they were bringing in a player with over 400 appearances for Arsenal and Juventus combined.
Despite his vast experience at the top level in Europe, Ramsey endured a frustrating spell at Ibrox and only managed two goals and two assists in 13 appearances in his five months at the club.
Of the nine Europa League matches Rangers played during his time in Glasgow, the Welsh flop played 86 minutes across three outings and was an unused substitute in four games.
Ramsey did have a huge say in how the season ended for the Gers in that competition, however, as the midfielder came on with two minutes to go in the final against Frankfurt and was the only player to miss a penalty in the shoot-out, which lost the final for van Bronckhorst.
21/22 Premiership | Aaron Ramsey |
|---|---|
Appearances | 7 |
Goals | 2 |
Assists | 1 |
Big chances created | 0 |
Tackles + interceptions per game | 0.8 |
As you can see in the table above, the experienced dud did not provide exceptional performances in the Premiership in his limited time on the pitch, with a decent but unspectacular return of two goals in seven games.
Former Scotland forward Frank McAvennie claimed, after the Europa League final, that Ramsey was the latest “big name” that “couldn’t hack it” at one of the Glasgow clubs, which is backed up by the midfielder’s struggles during his time at Ibrox.
Meanwhile, the player van Bronckhorst wanted to sign before Ramsey arrived – Simons – has gone from strength to strength since that season.
Xavi Simons’ current market value
As per Transfermarkt, the attacking midfielder’s current market value stands at around €80m (£67m) and that is a significant jump from the €1.5m (£1.2m) he was valued at in December 2021, around the time of the link to Rangers.
Simons produced a staggering 22 goals and 12 assists in 48 matches during his only season with PSV in the Netherlands, before PSG activated a buy-back clause as part of the compensation for losing him on a free the previous summer.
The French giants have subsequently sent him out on loan to German outfit RB Leipzig in the last two seasons, and the 21-year-old magician has thrived in the Bundesliga.
Simons, who has been capped 22 times by the Netherlands, has racked up 11 goals and 16 assists in 47 appearances in all competitions for Leipzig to date.
23/24 Bundesliga | Xavi Simons |
|---|---|
Appearances | 32 |
Goals | 8 |
Big chances created | 14 |
Assists | 11 |
Key passes per game | 2.5 |
As you can see in the table above, the Dutch starlet provided a huge threat as both a scorer and a creator of goals for Leipzig in the Bundesliga last season.
Meanwhile, no Rangers player managed more than ten assists and no midfielder in the squad provided more than 1.7 key passes per game in the Premiership last term, which highlights how impressive Simons’ return in a major European league was in the 2023/24 campaign.
Ramsey’s huge struggles during his expensive loan spell at Ibrox and the Dutch wizard’s incredible rise, in performance and value, since Rangers wanted him suggests that Wilson may look back on that window with regret, as van Bronckhorst’s Rangers story could have ended differently had he landed his main target.
