Rangers' transfers will have some risk: 'I'd like Mason Mount', Brazilian wonderkids, broken child

Michael Beale admits that there is an element of risk behind every transfer as no Scottish manager ever has the luxury of recruiting the finished article.

Rangers manager Michael Beale.

The Rangers boss believes he and his peers deserve greater credit for having to mould and improve raw talent as clubs in Scotland can’t afford to sign the very elite. Beale joked that he would love to be able to go for Chelsea’s Mason Mount or a Brazilian “golden child” but instead spends time and effort searching for players who have the potential to improve with proper coaching.

He said: “Do we always get our first choices? No, because I’d like to go and buy Mason Mount from Chelsea because I worked with him and I like him. We always have to take an element of risk. Sometimes we get a broken child, sometimes we get one before he has flourished and we have to help them flourish, whether that is Calvin Bassey, Nathan Patterson or Todd Cantwell from Norwich who was going great guns and then had a few changes of manager.

“No manager in Scotland will ever get to buy the finished article and I think that is why Scotland has over the years produced some fantastic managers because you have got to make the most of a small outlay. We always would look first in our league because we want Scottish players within our squad but we play everyone three times, so there are no surprises in terms of people coming through. We have to look in our academy here first, then our league and then we branch out. But we have to be realistic. Is the next Brazilian “golden child” coming to Scotland to play for Rangers when there are a lot of other places? So we have to recruit in the right areas.”