da prosport bet： Glasgow Rangers have endured a mixed start to the 2023/24 campaign, losing 1-0 in their opening day Premiership tie before defeating Servette 2-1 in the Champions League during midweek.
da dobrowin： There are still a few weeks left of the summer transfer window and Michael Beale will use this to potentially bring in another one or two players, while trimming his squad in the process.
One player who could well be departing Ibrox is winger Rabbi Matondo, as he appears to have no future under Beale.
Is Rabbi Matondo leaving Rangers?
The former Manchester City starlet was left out of Rangers’ Champions League squad for the qualifying ties, thus fuelling talk of an exit and now Football Insider has an update on the player.
The 22-year-old was spotted watching Leeds United during their opening Championship fixture at Elland Road last weekend according to Football Insider and it appears as though he could soon be leaving Glasgow.
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Matondo – who is valued at £3m, according to Football Transfers – cost the Gers £2m from Schalke last summer and failed to make an impact under either Giovanni van Bronckhorst or Beale during the 2022/23 season.
How poor was Rabbi Matondo last season?
The last few years have seen the Light Blues enjoy mixed success in the transfer window. Signing young talent such as Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey and turning them into a huge profit has been excellent business – with the pair departing last summer for £10m and £23m, respectively – yet these deals have been offset by money spent on various duds.
Cedric Itten fits into the latter category. The Swiss striker joined in the summer of 2020 for a fee in the region of £3m and he looked like he could add some firepower to the side.
He netted just six goals from 38 games during his maiden season, hardly the free-flowing goalscorer which many expected him to be upon his arrival.
Following a loan spell in the Bundesliga, Van Bronckhorst gave him a final chance during the second half of 2021/22, yet Itten scored just twice from eight matches and moved back to Switzerland that summer.
Matondo has somehow been a worse signing than Itten, failing to reproduce the attacking quality out wide that was on show during his loan spell at Belgian side Cercle Brugge, where he registered 12 goal contributions across just 27 games.
The Welsh winger started only 11 matches in all competitions for the Light Blues and considering the financial outlay, it represented a poor piece of business.
He managed to register just five assists while ranking in a lowly 15th spot among his teammates for shots on target per game (0.3), eighth for big chances created (four) and 13th for key passes per game (0.8), suggesting he failed to have a positive influence on the team when he did play.
Journalist Josh Bunting criticised him during a match against Ross County just before Christmas last year, saying: “Rabbi Matondo with probably the worst 23 minutes I’ve seen this season, just hasn’t worked out and I said when he signed I wasn’t convinced. Has the pace but the intelligence and the awareness just really lack. His crossing really poor, no quality in it at all it was more hopeful.”
If Beale is able to recoup the majority of the fee Rangers shelled out for Matondo last year, both parties will be able to move on and forget what turned out to be a woeful piece of transfer business.