Sheffield United defender Auston Trusty has been highlighted as the summer transfer market snub for Michael Beale and Rangers.
According to renowned writer Chris Jack, writing in the Rangers Review, the USA international cap is “understood” to be the club’s major summer center-back target.
Auston Trusty, who spent last season on loan at Birmingham City, returned to parent club Arsenal in the summer and was heavily linked with a transfer to Rangers.
According to the article, Auston Trusty became “prohibitively expensive” for the Rangers and Michael Beale, and the rest is history.
Michael Beale Rangers target Auston Trusty named
Instead, Sheffield United signed Auston Trusty for a reported £5 million fee, which appears to support up Michael Beale’s statements and indicate the Blades overpaid for the defender.
“Without giving any insider information, outs, names, or anything, we went a long way down the road with a left centre-back earlier in the window,” Beale explained.
“Ideally, we wanted that option to provide competition for Ben and because we wanted to work with a back three this season.”
“He moved to a Premier League club for more than what we were willing to pay, and that was all of us.”
“It wasn’t because the Board wasn’t willing to pay and I was thinking, you know, the price he went for was outside of what we thought the value of that player was.”
Rangers fans have been vocal in their dissatisfaction with the club’s failure to address the left-sided centre-back vacancy, and the botched deal for Auston Trusty will only add to that frustration.
Rangers have failed to fully replace Filip Helander despite having the whole window to do so, with defensive blunders continuing to cost the team.
The injured Leon King’s replacement, Leon Balogun, returns to contend with faltering vice-captain Connor Goldson, the error-prone John Souttar, and the seldom seen Ben Davies.
With King’s injury being less severe than expected, the teenager is also back in the squad, albeit far from the first team.
