There have been fresh shouts for Rangers to sign Lawrence Shankland this summer, with Alex McLeish adding his voice to the argument after a damaging 2025-26 campaign left the club third in the Premiership, behind Celtic and Hearts.
McLeish said he could not understand why Rangers never went for Shankland, and said he had told a pal of his who is a big investor at the club that they should move for the Hearts striker a few years back. He also recalled being told that Rangers did not want to sign players who were over 26, a policy that helped shape a recruitment drive built around younger players with resale value from overseas.
The case for change has grown louder because Rangers were beaten four times in their five post-split fixtures, a run that exposed both the lack of consistency and the absence of enough experienced voices on the pitch. Kris Boyd has already urged Rangers to raid Hearts for Derek McInnes and Shankland this summer, and Andrew Cavenagh has admitted there will be a pro-Scottish bias in recruitment as the club looks to reset.
That shift matters because the club’s recent focus on younger signings from abroad has not delivered the results Rangers wanted, either in terms of major success or meaningful transfer sales. The frustration was plain last month, when Danny Rohl was heard demanding leaders from the Ibrox hierarchy in the Tynecastle tunnel after the defeat against Hearts. Rangers now say they want more leadership in the squad, and Shankland’s name fits that need as much as any market argument.
McLeish made the point bluntly. “I can’t understand why they never went for Shankland,” he said. “I told a pal of mine who is a big investor at the club that they should go for him a few years back.” He added: “They don’t want to sign players who are over 26.”
For Rangers, the next step is not hard to see. If the summer rebuild is supposed to restore authority as well as ability, the club will have to decide whether it still wants the same profile of player it has chased for years — or whether it is finally ready to back proven names at home.
