Rangers' recruitment has been something of a hot topic of late, with the Old Firm outfit having seemingly struggled to adequately strengthen the starting lineup in recent times, despite a raft of new additions.

One man who would certainly have been a leading figure for the Ibrox side had he signed is current Brentford talisman Ivan Toney, with the Englishman having seemingly been a target for the club - as well as rivals Celtic - back in the summer of 2020.

The 26-year-old admitted last year that he had actually come close to joining the Gers at the time, having caught the attention of a number of suitors as a result of his form for lower-league side Peterborough, having scored 49 goals and registered 16 assists in just 94 games for the Football League outfit.

As it proved, the Glasgow side - then managed by Steven Gerrard - ultimately missed the boat as the centre-forward joined his current side that same summer, with the reported fee believed to have been an initial £5m, rising to a maximum of £10m.

That failure to land the one-time Newcastle United man has no doubt come back to bite the Scottish giants since then, particularly with the club having splashed the cash on fellow strikers Kemar Roofe (£4m) and Cedric Itten (£3m) in the same window - the former having since spent lengthy spells on the treatment table, while the latter man has only recently moved on to Swiss side Young Boys.

Gerrard and co would have been better served forking out the required fee to land Toney instead, with the Northampton-born "monster" - as dubbed by one source - going on to sparkle for the Bees, having scored 52 goals and registered 19 assists in 97 games for the west London outfit to date.

The 2020/21 campaign proved particularly profitable for the 6 foot 2 menace as he registered a staggering 33 Championship goals to help fire Thomas Frank's side to promotion, while he has since netted 17 goals and laid on seven assists in 42 Premier League games.

That smooth transition to life in the top-flight notably saw the £21k-per-week ace called up to Gareth Southgate's England squad for the recent Nations League fixtures, with that inclusion a marker of his stunning rise up the footballing pyramid.

Just two years on from nearly moving to Ibrox, the suggestion is that Toney could now worth be worth as much as £50m, according to CBS reporter Ben Jacobs, with Manchester United believed to be one of those keeping tabs on his progress.

That potential asking price is ten times the fee that the Gers could have paid for him back in 2020, with current boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst likely ruing his predecessor's failure to get the deal done for a player who now boasts an impressive 144 club career goals.