ALLY McCoist last night accepted his hopes of luring Christophe Berra to Rangers were over after an npower Championship club entered the chase to sign the Scotland internationalist.
The Rangers manager had spoken to Berra, who is a free agent after being released by Wolverhampton Wanderers at the end of last season, and his representative last week about joining the Ibrox club.
However, it now seems likely that the former Hearts player will return to England instead. "The deal for Christophe Berra is now off; there is nothing in that at all," said McCoist, whose side began their pre-season schedule with a 2-0 win over Highland League club Brora Rangers yesterday. "I think he is going to go down to a Championship club."
McCoist, though, confirmed that he has spoken to Boris Pandza – the Bosnian centre-back recommended to him by the former Rangers player Sasa Papac – about moving to Scotland, while the manager was also left encouraged by the display of Belil Mohsni, a French-Tunisian defender, who played as a trialist at Dudgeon Park yesterday alongside six players whom Rangers have signed already this season.
The Glasgow side reportedly face competition for the former Southend United and Ipswich Town player from Barclays Premier League side West Ham United, but the desire to land a centre-back grew yesterday as Ross Perry was stretchered off with a serious ankle ligament injury during the win over Brora.
"It looks like Ross has gone over on his ankle and damaged the ligaments," said McCoist. "The club is still taking to Pandza's agent and I have spoken to the player. There's still a long way to go, but he is a player we are interested in. I was very happy with Belil; he came in and played alongside Emilson Cribari. There was a bit of experience there; he looked very comfortable in the first half.
"When Ross got injured Belil steadied the ship. There is every chance we could play him against Elgin on Wednesday night. He has fitted in with the lads and is enjoying himself. That is something that we will take forward.
"I spoke to Paul Sturrock who worked with him at Southend. He has given him great reports. I also spoke to Sam Allardyce at West Ham and Ian Holloway at Crystal Palace. They know him too."
McCoist – whose side won yesterday following two goals in the second half from Lewis Macleod and which included new arrivals Cammy Bell, Nicky Clark, Jon Daly, Ricky Foster, Nicky Law and Stevie Smith – also dismissed reports that Anestis Argyriou, Cribari, Perry and Kyle Hutton have all been told that they can look for other clubs.
"That's news to me," he said. "There's been nothing said to me and nothing is concrete. We'll see what happens over the next few weeks. I'd like to think there would be movement in and out of the club."
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 hereComments are closed on this article