West Brom in £3m bid for Tavernier

Steven Gerrard faces an anxious wait to discover whether his plans for Rangers’ Europa League third round qualifier at home to Maribor tonight will be disrupted by last-minute activity as the English transfer window closes.

West Bromwich Albion are understood to have lodged a £3 million bid for James Tavernier, with Brighton also credited with an interest in the Rangers captain.

Clubs down south have until 5pm this evening – only two-and-three-quarter hours before kick-off at Ibrox – to buy players which creates a potential headache for the Rangers manager, with attacking midfielder Josh Windass also linked with late moves by English clubs.

Ipswich have been credited with a £1m move for Windass and Gerrard did not rule out the possibility of movement just as he attempted to finalise his team for the first leg encounter with the Slovenian side.

“Two of my better players – that’s handy isn’t it?” Gerrard said of the interest in the pair. “I’ve heard nothing in terms of bids but that may change in the coming hours. If it does we’ll have to wait and see. It might have an affect but at the moment we haven’t got

that problem to worry about. We’re at a club where every player does have a price so that might affect us in the next 24 hours but we’ll have to deal and face that if and when it happens. At the moment I’m looking at my phone and hoping [Rangers director of football] Mark Allen doesn’t phone me in the coming hours. We just need to focus on the game and prepare the team the best way we can. But I can’t sit here and say we won’t be affected in the next 24 hours. We might be. We’ll have to wait and see.” Gerrard has been unsuccessful with a £200,000 bid for Hearts striker Kyle Lafferty but remains in the market for signings. Osijek captain Borna Barisic this week became Rangers’ 11th addition of the summer but Gerrard was keen to point out the transfer fee was not as high as reported.

“I want to speak to you about that because some of the numbers that have been written about are above what we’ve actually paid,” the manager said. “Certainly, in Nikola [Katic] and Borna’s cases I’ve read we’ve spent a certain amount on them and the numbers are inaccurate. I’ve read we spent £2.5m on Nikola – it was £1.5m. It’s also said we paid £2.5m [for Barisic] it was £1.5m.

“I’m really, really happy. Our business has been good. If we don’t make anothersigningtheni’mhappywith the squad. Unless something major happens in the next 24 hours with someone making a bid for one of our players that we can’t resist then I’d be satisfied. If we can make another addition then great – a manager always wants that little bit more.”