Michael Beale has recently signed his third player for Glasgow Rangers, with midfielder Kieran Dowell joining the Ibrox side on a pre-contract deal until 2026.

He joins Nicolas Raskin and Todd Cantwell as Beale signings, and the signs are certainly looking positive ahead of what promises to be a busy transfer window, with plenty of ins and outs ahead of 2023/24.

The 42-year-old will have to be smart with his transfer dealings as funds may be in short supply, though according to Football Insider, the Gers have been linked with a move for defender Thierry Small, with a fee of around £1.2m demanded by Southampton.

The 18-year-old could follow in the same footsteps as former Ibrox left-back Calvin Bassey, who was sold to Ajax last summer for a club-record fee of £23m having enjoyed a stellar campaign which included a Scottish Cup winners' medal and a Europa League final appearance.

Could Thierry Small join Rangers this summer?

With Beale looking to rejig the squad, anything is possible, and for the aforementioned £1.2m fee, it could well prove to be an excellent investment, similar to that of Bassey.

The current Ajax star cost the Light Blues just £230k as a compensation fee to Leicester City in the summer of 2020, and having made sporadic appearances in his debut season, a defensive injury crisis last term gave him the chance to impress at centre-back as he played 50 games across all competitions.

Like Bassey, Small is also a left-back, while he can play slightly further forward if required, and he has spent the second half of the season on loan at St Mirren, giving him good experience of the physical nature of Scottish football.

Small is still in the embryonic stages of his career, with his 6.44/10 Sofascore rating indicating that he is still on a steep learning curve, however, he has managed to make one key pass per game while grabbing an assist, indicating that he has shown glimpses of his attacking abilities.

Defensively, the youngster averages 1.3 tackles and one clearance per game, which despite ranking him 7th and 14th in the squad respectively is rather respectable considering he has only started seven Premiership games.

Football writer Simon Peach lauded the defender as “exciting” and “highly rated” after he moved to Southampton from Everton in 2021, so he perhaps has the potential to make the breakthrough at Ibrox over the next year or two.

With Borna Barisic entering the final year of his contract, it appears as though Beale is looking at young talent to fill the void when he finally departs, and in the process, he may just unearth another £23m gem.