Phil Clement has admitted that budget issues have impacted the decision to dump Ianis Hagi from his squad.
The midfielder was the only Ibrox player at the European Championships but has been left out of the squad listed with UEFA for the Champions League qualifiers against Dinamo Kiev.
After all the hype about his surname the reality is that Hagi Junior is a bang average, one-paced midfielder that has already tried and failed to make any impact in Italy, Belgium and Spain.
At Ibrox the craving for attention has seen big names like Aaron Ramsey, Joey Barton, Bruno Alves and Ahmad Dialo come and go without any achievements on the park while taking a decent sized wedge from the club accounts.
Clement is having to deal with the reality of the situation of a bloated, ageing and overpaid squad while delivering success to an increasingly demanding and deluded support.
Connor Barron, Mohamed Diomande, Kieran Dowell and Tom Lawrence were used against Hearts on Saturday with glamour boys Hagi and Todd Cantwell now surplus to requirements.
“We had clear talks before the pre-season with his agents about that,” Clement admitted to the Glasgow Times when he was asked about Hagi’s appearance in the B team today.
“We need to look, like I said, at a lot of things in the club about wages, how many you can have in a position with the budget we have and to get the budget to make transfers.
“So, it was really clear towards him that the idea was to sell him. That is what we wanted also so that is the clear situation.”
Despite reported interest from Fiorentina a few weeks ago no bid has come in for Hagi who failed to make any positive impact on loan at Alaves last season despite the hype from a variety of Romanian media sources.
With UEFA allowing two new signings to be added to his squad for tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Dinamo Kiev it seems that there is a freeze on recruitment at Ibrox.
Eleven days after announcing that Cantwell wanted out of Ibrox there hasn’t been a worthwhile enquiry made about the former Norwich starlet.
The expected ‘end of a cycle’ has barely got underway for Clement with James Tavernier, Ben Davies, Lawrence, Scott Wright and Cyriel Dessers all in the Starting XI away to Hearts and likely to be involved in the Dinamo Kiev ties.
With the transfer window closing on August 30 it is expected that a number of players will go out on loan towards the end of the window with very little in the way of transfer funds coming in for the Clement Revolution!
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