Rangers kick-off their league season this weekend when they visit Motherwell on Sunday and the team on display will be vastly different to what fans were used to last season.
Pedro Caixinha has already made nine first-team signings this summer but with a month left before the transfer window shuts, there’s plenty of time to bring more players in as he attempts to build a squad that can consistently win in the Scottish Premiership.
Will one of those players be a midfielder to challenge the likes of Graham Dorrans and Carlos Pena?
As reported by The Daily Mail earlier this week, Rangers are showing an interest in Wigan Athletic star Max Power this summer. The report says that the 24-year-old could be available for as little as £500,000, meaning he is well within Rangers’ budget.
Here are four29 things you need to know about this latest signing target…
Most of his appearances have come in League One or below
Perhaps the main thing for Rangers fans to consider when it comes to Max Power, besides the fact he isn’t named after that The Simpsons episode, is the fact that the majority of his experience thus far as a professional footballer has come in the lower reaches of English league football.
Of his 220 appearances to date for Tranmere Rovers and Wigan Athletic, just 42 have come in the Championship with the rest coming in League One and League Two or cup competitions.
The Light Blues have had mixed success shopping in these markets over the last couple of years with Mark Warburton showing keen interesting in bringing players like Martyn Waghorn and Joe Garner north of the border.
The standard of the Scottish Premiership is derided but to be truly consistent and win enough to challenge Celtic, Rangers will need an elite squad of players. Is Max Power of that standard?
He loves a goal
One thing that can be said for Max Power is that he loves a goal from midfield, possessing that inherent desire to get forward and assist his teammates in the final third.
Overall throughout his career from his debut for Tranmere at the age of 18 to now, he’s scored 25 goals and assisted 27 more. That means he directly contributes to a goal just over every four matches, which isn’t a bad return at all for a young central midfielder learning his trade in the game.
In 2014/15 he even ended up Tranmere’s top scorer with 13 goals in all competitions, giving him the profile necessary for League One promotion chasers Wigan to make their move for him that summer. In the Championship he’s struggled with that aspect of his game more, but still managed seven assists last term in a struggling, ultimately relegated, side.
Rangers badly need more goal threats from midfield to complement their strike-force, it was a key deficiency last season so someone like Power could do the trick.
He could be the Kenny McLean alternative they are looking for
While Rangers’ interest in Kenny McLean has been widely reported, it’s clear that Aberdeen are in no mood to sell the midfielder to the Ibrox side in a summer when their captain and midfield star, Ryan Jack, also made the switch to Glasgow.
It’s unlikely the Light Blues have the resources to offer Aberdeen a knock-out bid, so seeking other targets is the most likely alternative and Max Power certainly appears to share some of the same attributes as the Dons player.
Both play centrally box-to-box and possess a flair to shine in the final third and get themselves on the scoresheet.
With the pragmatic Graham Dorrans and Carlos Pena already marshalling the midfield in front of the Rangers defence, is Max Power this kind of dynamic and forward thinking central player Pedro Caixinha needs in his first team?
He’s leaving Wigan due to ambition
The only reason Max Power has been frozen out at Wigan this summer and is reportedly available for a reported cut-price £500,000 is due to his desire to leave and seek a higher standard of football after the club’s relegation from the Championship last term.
Last week he revealed to Wigan Today that he had been cut from the club’s squad, saying:
“Unfortunately I have been removed from the squad at this moment in time. The club turned down offers for me during the January transfer window from a Championship club, so I stated that if offers where to come in again during this transfer window I would like to stay in the Championship. I understand some fans may feel angered by this. However, at this stage of my career, I would like to play at as high a level as possible.”
While that kind of drama may be off putting for some Rangers fans, it’s a level of ambition and drive that they need to attract to Ibrox Stadium if they are to be contenders for silverware in the coming years.
They need characters willing to better themselves and push on as players and it’s clear Max Power is not willing to settle for second best when he feels like he has something to offer better teams than Wigan.
