PHILIPPE Clement has revealed that Rangers are in talks with French club Lens about extending Oscar Cortes’ stay at Ibrox even though the Colombian loanee will not play again this season.
Clement has hoped the winger, who suffered a muscle injury which required surgery in the cinch Premiership match against Kilmarnock back in February, would return to action before the end of the 2023/24 campaign.
However, the Belgian, whose team take on the Rugby Park side in the league in Govan tomorrow afternoon, yesterday confirmed that neither the 20-year-old or long-term absentee Danilo would feature this term.
The Rangers manager, though, indicated that he is keen to keep Cortes, who impressed supporters with his lively displays out wide after arriving in January, in Glasgow after his current agreement expires, either in a permanent deal or on loan again.
READ MORE: Rangers player joins Livingston on emergency loan deal
“We are talking with Lens about what the situation is because in this situation it is a different situation from when he was fit,” he said.
“At the moment he was fit he was showing the right things, but it was really short term. Then it needs to be at the right price.”
Meanwhile, Clement has welcomed Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland and right back James Tavernier being nominated for the PFA Scotland Premiership Player of the Year award by their fellow professionals and Ibrox winger Ross McCausland entering the running for the Young Player of the Year honour.
READ MORE: Rangers ace Connor Goldson ruled out for rest of the season
“They were booed off the pitch a few times six months ago,” he said. “The club was not in the right place. So it's also proved there has been a good evolution made in the club.
“You can only be nominated if your team is doing the right things. It's a collective sport so it means, at Rangers, something has gone well. Not everything yet, we know and we're working hard on that to make it better and to make it more consistent.
“I see that Ross last season trained five times the whole season with the first squad and he's now nominated for that prize. That's a really positive thing for all the academy and everybody who worked closely in the youth teams and the first team with Ross and Ross himself for the way he's worked all this time.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here