A few weeks back reports (The Scottish Sun) came out that Celtic and Rangers both were going to fight for the signature of Czech Republic international Tomas Kalas. The defender is currently on loan with Bristol City, a team fighting to get into the Championship play-offs. Kalas is presently on the books at Chelsea, but he has now had seven different loan spells since he joined the club when he was just 16.
He is being valued at around £5m, and we felt that both the Scottish giants might have a decent chance of landing this centre half. However, Bristol Post recently published a report where they compiled the quotes of the CEO and the assistant manager regarding the future of the defender.
Bristol City’s CEO Mark Ashton was quoted as saying in February, ”I said before that we have an option on Dasilva. We don’t have that on Kalas. It wasn’t part of the availability. He’s done so well for us. We have ongoing discussions with Chelsea and he will come into the discussions.”
The fact that the Robins are already in contact with Chelsea suggests to us that they are going to be the favourites to land the defender. Kalas still has his contract at Stamford Bridge until 2021. Ideally, Chelsea might want to sell him permanently so that they can make some money on him, but other clubs would be aware that they can get the defender on a season-long loan as well.
Signing a player on loan is never ideal as that doesn’t allow the player to continue and the manager needs to rethink his options again in the next transfer window. Therefore we would like to see Gerrard and Rangers try to sign the Czech international on a permanent basis. But there is no doubt to us that Bristol City would probably be the favourites to sign the defender as he has been doing well for them and is aware of the club’s playing style and structure.
Rangers will need to sign a centre back or two in the upcoming summer transfer window as they are going to lose the services of Joe Worrall and Gareth McAuley. With Celtic also in the mix, Rangers might not be able to match Celtic’s financial power.
However, that shouldn’t deter Gerrard and the board from trying to sign the defender in the summer. But right now, English club Bristol City should be the favourites to sign him after it was revealed that the club’s CEO is already in discussion with the London based outfit.
