Ex-Rangers midfielder Barry Ferguson believes that his former club would have to sell Alfredo Morelos in order to fund a move for Ryan Kent.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has said that the 22-year-old won’t be moving clubs this summer unless it is a permanent switch. With the Reds asking for £10m+, that would put him out of the club’s price range. Ferguson believes funds would have to be found through Morelos’s sale:

“The price being banded about is £10m and I really don’t think Rangers can afford that if I’m being honest. They would need to maybe get rid of a Morelos to get that sort of money in.”

Whether manager Steven Gerrard would consider such a move, I highly doubt it. Even just looking at the numbers, you can see the Colombian has a much better end product.

Morelos scored 30 goals last season, whilst providing 11 assists. In contrast, Kent could only muster six goals and contribute nine assists in five fewer appearances.

Some may argue that the Liverpool star may have more potential than the Colombian international, but they are a similar age, with Morelos only seven months older.

A lot may depend on Morelos’s desire to leave. Only a few days ago, Gerrard made the unusual step of calling on the striker to make a public statement about his future.

No doubt, the manager is keen to end the speculation surrounding the player, but it does expose Rangers’ uncertainty over the forward’s commitment to the club.

Even if he were angling for a move away from Ibrox, though, there have been no signs that a club are close to making a bid, late alone putting an offer on the table that would be deemed acceptable by the Rangers board.

Were that to ever happen, you still have to question whether reinvesting that money in Kent would be the wisest move.

Gerrard has a wealth of wide options available to him this season. In addition to the likes Sheyi Ojo, Jordan Jones and Jake Hastie, he can also employ Greg Stewart out wide, and Jamie Murphy is still part of the first-team squad.

Were Morelos ever to leave, the Gers should be entirely focused on signing another striker in order to replace the 30 goals a season that they would lose.

With that being the case, the only way I see Kent returning to the club is if Liverpool relent on their asking price or, more realistically, decide that a loan deal is the right move after all. We may have to wait until the end of August to see how things play out.