RANGERS lost a lot of money by failing to put up a fight to keep Barrie McKay in the summer, according to his agent.
The winger departed Ibrox for Nottingham Forest for a fee of around £500,000 after falling out with manager Pedro Caixinha.
He was told to train with the youth team by the Portuguese boss and agent Grant Smith believes the club lost their leverage in negotiations due to their treatment of the player.
Read more: Derek McInnes ready for Rangers, says Dick Advocaat
Speaking to the Fitba Hacks podcast, Smith explained that McKay was happy to stay at the Light Blues before being forced out in a deal that has cost the club a lot of money.
He said: "What I hear all the time was that Barrie was desperate to go. He must have had three or four meetings to say, 'no problem, I’m happy to stay'.
"The good thing for Rangers now is they have this director of football in because he’ll know the game. I dealt with him a little bit in regards to when we were leaving and he was spot-on, he knew it. He was like ‘at the end of the day, he’s got a year left, if we’re not prepared to give him a decent contract…’
"I was in that office four times before Mark Allen came in. And they were saying, 'we’re thinking about this but...'
"I know there’s some who’ll think, 'He should want to play for free' but at the end of the day he was an asset – he was Rangers’ asset.
"At the time Rangers’ asset was Barrie because the rest were older. OK, you might have got your money back on some of them but Barrie was someone who was going to make them realistic money.
"Forest were interested and they made £14m this summer on a player. Then Pedro decided not to involve him. Yeah, he ostracised him.
"If I’m in charge of Rangers at that time, I’m asking 'What are you doing?' What’s your leverage? Your leverage is that you want this player to stay.
Read more: Derek McInnes ready for Rangers, says Dick Advocaat
"As soon as you put him with the youth team (you lose it). As soon as you say ‘we want him to stay’ you’d think ‘really? How come he’s training with 16 year olds?’
"I think Forest would have paid a lot more. Easily. Mark knew him, Frank knew him, Davie Weir knew him and really rated him. Rangers took their poker hand away basically.
"I mean, some of the stuff Pedro said to him...One minute saying he was the best player in Scotland and then he was doing that. He was contradicting himself all the time.
"Someone doing the job of that size should have been doing better. He cost Rangers a lot of money."
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