Rangers have made plenty of signings since Steven Gerrard took over and most of them have come good and allowed the Gers to close the gap on Celtic. However, some signings haven’t worked, and Eros Grezda’s name will be on top of the list of failed signings in the last two seasons. Moreover, Rangers paid nearly £2m to land him in the summer of 2018.
End of Grezda’s career at the Ibrox?
The Albanian winger was injured when he was signed, and it took him a few months before he became match fit. The winger though only appeared in seven matches for the Glaswegian outfit last season. Grezda, meanwhile, was close to leaving this summer, but nothing has materialised thus far. The final nail in his career at Ibrox was laid recently as the player was accused of spitting (The Express) at Ballymena United player Andrew Burns. The Albanian international has been playing with the youth squad to keep his fitness levels up, and this incident took place at Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Challenge Cup.
Latest reports from Daily Record indicate that Rangers could still look to ship the winger out by Monday as Qatari giants Al Sadd and fourth-placed Al-Rayyan – have yet to use up their foreign players’ quota. They could, therefore, make a move for Grezda with the Gers more than happy to get him off their wage bill soon.
Gerrard had already given his verdict on the player as he was left fuming after the spitting incident. The manager had said, ”He has been advised to find a different challenge for himself, and his representation is aware of that. If you behave in that manner, you won’t represent this club at any level. No one behaves like that and wears the Rangers shirt.”
A lesson for the future?
Only time will tell whether Rangers can strike a deal with either of the Qatari clubs before Monday. A lot was expected out of the former Osijek star as he is a 12-time Albania international. Moreover, the transfer fee of £2m is a sizeable sum.
It would be interesting to see how much of a transfer fee Rangers will be able to recoup by selling him. The Rangers recruitment team should learn their lesson from Grezda’s underwhelming spell, and they should avoid signing players who are struggling with injuries. The Albanian wing wizard took months to prepare himself for the Premiership and even then, he wasn’t able to get up to the pace. Recurring injuries continued to trouble him, and soon he was pushed further away from the squad with new signings coming in.
