DEEP DIVE

Sharks may be circling across the city but after £35m spending surge, Martin and his team now have to show their teeth

- BY ANDY NEWPORT

NO ONE needs to tell the Rangers support about the cost of living crisis.

Last Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of Ronald de Boer's Ibrox arrival.

Back then, Rangers were able to land a Champions League winner with 350 appearances for European giants Ajax and Barcelona, plus 60 caps for the Netherlands, all for £4.5million.

These days, that kind of money gets you an Oscar Cortes.

A few months after de Boer's arrival, David Murray and Dick Advocaat splashed the cash again as they splurged a club record £12m on Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo.

It has taken a quarter of a century for Rangers to come anywhere close to that hefty sum but that they did this week.

Unlike back in the year 2000 when the club was at the height of its big-spending hubris, they weren't landing a proven Premier League goalscorer like Flo.

Instead, the cheque for £8m handed over for Everton's Youssef Chermiti has bought a player who can at best be described as having potential.

That's a kind summary for a kid who, at the age of 21, has a grand total of seven career goals and just 20 professional starts.

A more critical appraisal might be to suggest that Russell Martin, sporting director Kevin Thelwell and chief exec Patrick Stewart have just shelled out a huge wad of the American dollars provided by Andrew Cavenagh and the San Francisco 49ers - the second biggest sum the club have spent and one that could eventually go up another couple of million with add-ons - on an untried and untested project signing.