STEVEN Gerrard last night dismissed the prospect of Southampton tabling a bid for Rangers captain James Tavernier before the transfer January window deadline on Thursday.
The Premier League club are looking for a right back after Cedric Soares joined Inter Milan on loan until the end of the season and have been linked with a move for Tavernier.
But Gerrard revealed Ibrox officials had phoned the St Mary’s Stadium club yesterday and received assurances the English defender wasn’t a player they were interested in making a move for.
Speaking after Rangers had returned to second place in the Ladbrokes Premiership table courtesy of a 3-0 win over Livingston away, he stressed that no bids had been many for Tavernier, leading scorer Alfredo Morelos or any of his players.
When it was put to him that Southampton may be looking at Tavernier, Gerrard said: “They’re not. We made a call on it this morning and they are not.
“I think there will be talk of Tav and talk of Alfredo, but the reality is there hasn’t been a solid bid for any of our players so far.
“Will one come? Possibly, I’m not sure. I’ll have to answer the question when it does. There hasn’t been a respectable bid for any of the players where we stand right now.”
Gerrard was delighted with how his team responded to their 2-1 defeat to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Wednesday night and urged his charges to build on the victory by going on a winning run.
“The challenge for us now as a team is can we find consistency?” he said. “Because we take one, two, three or four steps forward and then take a big step back.
“If we want to become a good team and a successful team who are going to compete for what is available, we have to find consistency.”
Gerrard left his loan signings Steven Davis and Jermain Defoe out of his starting line-up and admitted the display of his team without them had given him a dilemma ahead of the rearranged William Hill Scottish Cup fourth round game against Cowdenbeath at Central Park on Wednesday night.
“That’s why I brought that quality in,” he said. “At times, we’ve been short. If you go back to the League Cup semi-final we lost against Aberdeen, we were short in the main department and that’s can’t happen.
“So the reason we bring quality in is for people to fight for places and hopefully that brings top form out of people. But I welcome the selection headache in terms of formation and personnel. That’s the position I want to be in."
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