Silly Season in Full Swing.

With a lack of football to enjoy on the pitch, the focus has turned to close-season activity in the transfer market.

Known as the ‘Silly Season’, this is the time of the year when clubs around the globe get linked with a wild plethora of players, 90% of whom would be out of their league anyway, 9% who are nothing more than paper talk and idle speculation for want of a story, and the remaining 1% are the genuine article. Maybe.

The most note-worthy stories currently doing the rounds link Rangers with Steven Naismith of Kilmarnock, DaMarcus Beasley of PSV Eindhoven, Carlos Cuellar of Osasuna, Marouane Chamakh of Bordeaux, and Bosko Balaban of FC Bruges.

Beginning with Naismith, well this is beginning to resemble the Scott Brown story. Forever connected with a switch to Ibrox, Naismith is a promising player who is highly rated, and while a trial at Arsenal proves nothing, it shows he is a player clubs down south are keeping tabs on. He ruled out, however, a move to England, surely putting Rangers in prime position to capture his signature. However, Celtic have declared interest, albeit they have not offered a bid as Rangers have, however small it may have been. So this may be another deal scuppered by Celtic, who seem to have a habit of hijacking many of the deals Rangers endeavour to tie up. Time will tell if this is to be another failure.

Beasley is next up; an established international with the USA, this attacking forward who can play either wing is an undeniably well-rated player, whose release from Dutch giants PSV is something of a surprise. He will cost around one million or less, which is a fairly remarkable price for such a well-known forward with definite ability. He had been on loan at Manchester City and that deal was not being extended. It beggars belief that a player of this standing could be had at a bargain price with two clubs not desiring to keep him. It has been reported a deal has indeed been reached between PSV and Rangers, and if there is truth in this, it should not be a significantly long time before Beasley is paraded at Ibrox.

Cuellar is the next story, with claims offers have been made by Rangers, or that talks have been opened. Walter Smith officially denied this to be the case, but it has not stopped the press claiming the contrary, with recent reports that he offered Spanish side Osasuna £1M for the defender, who is yet to play for his country at the age of 25. However, quotes attributed to Rangers’ Uefa Cup conquerors suggest this offer was rejected as 3 times lower than their rated figure for the promising stopper.

Next up we have Chamakh, a player linked to Ibrox last season when Paul Le Guen was anticipating his first season. The Bordeaux forward is not terribly well-known in the UK, and it is being suggested that him being mooted for a move to Govan is a non-story inspired by the signature of his former team mate Jean-Claude Darcheville on a Bosman.

Finally is a story which emerged around three weeks ago, with Croat international Balaban publicly declaring massive interest in leaving Belgium and joining Rangers, after former Ger and Croat legend Dado Prso sang their praises to him. On the basis Smith wanted him, this one would be a foregone conclusion, but sadly it seems the manager has no interest. At least none which has been made public, and a player whose career has been extremely impressive bar one poor season in England looks like slipping through Rangers’ hands.

But, it remains early days in Silly Season, so anything is possible.