Montrose boss reveals audacious bid to land ex-Dundee United star Rankin

MONTROSE: Petrie makes ambitious bid to entice Rankin to League 2 new boys

Montrose boss Stewart Petrie has made an audacious bid to bring the experienced John Rankin to the club.

The 34-year-old midfielder is a free agent after being released by Championship outfit Queen of the South.

Rankin, who has also played for Ross County, Inverness, Hibs, Dundee United and Falkirk, is not surprisingly on the radar of other clubs including Montrose’s Angus rivals Forfar.

However, Petrie persuaded his former Tangerines team-mate Sean Dillon to move to the part-time Angus side and the manager hopes to do the same with Rankin as the promoted Gable Endies gear up for life in League 1.

Petrie said: “We have already turned our attention to planning for next season. We actually started to do that last season, looking at players we wanted to target. They had to be ones who would improve the squad, no matter what league we were in.

“Even if we hadn’t gone up, we were determined to improve and give it a right good go again next season.

“We are looking to bring in maybe five new players at a push. One of those we have spoken to is John Rankin

“A player of his quality would take us to another level but John will have a lot of options and he would also have to weigh up whether to go part-time.

“However, if we could get him, then I am sure he would have a similar impact to the one Sean Dillon is having since he joined us last summer.

“But John is not in a hurry to make a decision on his future so we will just have to wait and see.”

Rankin began his career in 2003 with Ross County before making a switch to Highland rivals Inverness CT three years later.

He moved on to Hibs before spending five seasons at Tannadice, where he made more than 200 appearances.

He was released in 2016 after United’s relegation to the Championship and joined Falkirk.

Meanwhile, like last summer, Petrie is looking to have his transfer business concluded sooner rather than later and he intends to have a lot of ins and outs finalised by next week.

He added: “We are looking to keep the nucleus of the squad that did so well to win promotion and add further quality.

“I spoke to all the boys on Wednesday night and we have made contract offers but unfortunately there will also be departures.

“They have all been part of something special and I didn’t want to do any of that over the phone so I had face-to-face meetings with all of them.

“We will hopefully have a lot of our business done by next week.”

SNS. Montrose boss Stewart Petrie, top, was named Ladbrokes League 2 manager of the season last week and is keen to add former Dundee United midfielder John Rankin, above, to his squad for the new season.