STEVEN Gerrard has revealed that Rangers centre half Leon Balogun is on the verge of triggering a clause in his contract that will see him remain at Ibrox next season.
Balogun has been outstanding for the Glasgow club both domestically and in Europe since joining them on a free transfer from Premier League outfit Brighton last summer.
He has helped to ensure the runaway Premiership leaders, who take on Hamilton at the FOY Stadium in the league today, have only conceded seven goals in the top flight.
Gerrard has repeatedly stressed that he is keen to keep the Nigerian internationalist, who signed a one year deal when he arrived in Scotland, beyond the 2020/21 campaign.
The former Liverpool and England midfielder brought in defender Jack Simpson from Bournemouth before the January transfer window closed on Monday night.
The arrival of Simpson means he has no fewer than six centre backs in his squad – Balogun, George Edmondson, Conor Goldson, Filip Helander and Nikola Katic are the others.
Gerrard has confirmed that situation will change during the close season – but that Balogun very much remains part of his plans.
The vastly-experienced 32-year-old, who has featured in 21 games at home and abroad, is set to automatically trigger an extension clause in his agreement in the coming weeks.
“We have six centre backs at the moment but that won't be the case in the summer,” said Gerrard.
“Leon has something in his contract that might trigger on its own in the coming weeks.
“But we don’t have to wait for that because we are really happy with the player and I want him around for next season anyway.”
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 here