Ross Wilson adamant Rangers star Alfredo Morelos will not be sold cheaply

Rangers sporting director Ross Wilson will fend off any attempt to snatch star striker Alfredo Morelos on the cheap as speculation continues to swirl despite the uncertain backdrop.

The football landscape has been unimaginably altered by the impact of the coronavirus crisis gripping the world, but speculation over summer transfers remain.

Rangers star Morelos continues to be linked with a variety of clubs, with Leicester, West Ham, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace reportedly among the interested parties.

Premier League clubs look to be better placed than most to exploit the current situation, but sporting director Wilson says the free-scoring Colombian and his team-mates will not be going for a cut price.

“We definitely don’t want to be selling anybody on the cheap to use that phrase,” he said. “That’s for sure.

“The market as it stands just now… I’m in touch with my counterparts throughout Europe all the time, particularly my colleagues in the Premier League that I’m used to working really, really close with.

“One of the biggest topics that we speak about informally just now is what we all think the transfer market will look like. For a start, when will that market open? Nobody knows that. But then secondly what it’ll look like.

“Equally, my phone goes every day, as you can imagine, with lots of agents and again that’s one of the first things on the question list – ‘What do you think the transfer market will look like?’ from them to me and me to them.

“The bottom line is we don’t know and we don’t know where it will be, but there is certainly no intention to sell anyone on the cheap. That’s for sure.

“But we have to see what this market actually looks like and who’s doing what.

“There’s probably three schools of thought – that the market will be really, really low and crash out, that there will be no change at all – which I think is an unrealistic viewpoint – and that we’ll see some form of abnormality and change over the next two to four windows.

“I probably think the latter is the most likely, that the market will certainly change, whether you’re talking about player’s wages, transfer fees or agents’ fees.

“I think all clubs are aware that’s the biggest likelihood, albeit not everybody agrees with that position right now.

“But I think it will be one of the three things. In my opinion, it’s the latter one. But we genuinely won’t know that until the market gets into full swing.

“The market is very much driven by supply and demand and there’s a domino effect always in the market.

“And until that machine starts to move, nobody will know the valuation of our players or anybody else’s for that matter.”

Wilson returned to Scotland last year to take the post of sporting director at Ibrox, leaving his role as director of football operations at Premier League side Southampton.

He believes Saints are an example to follow in many aspects and has been looking to replicate their links to the European market through agents and clubs as he looks to build for the future.

But what that the future looks like is unclear, including how, when and if the league can resume at a time when Rangers have made clear their fury at the way the Scottish Professional Football League has handled matters.

“I think the club’s been very, very clear on the position from the guys on the board, the guys that have been dealing with that,” said Wilson, who has written to the SPFL about embracing innovation and creativity as well as underlining the importance of consulting all stakeholders.

“All of my time has been taken up with running our football operation, alongside the manager where the first-team is concerned and alongside Craig Mulholland where the academy is concerned.

“If you’d asked me before coronavirus if I would possibly believe that it could be as busy as this without actually being at the training ground every day, I would never have believed you.

“But certainly I’ve not had any time to deal with any of those sort of things that’s going on and they’re being dealt with at different level of the club.

“My focus is absolutely on building the football side here, which is a big job in its own right.”