Glasgow Rangers have endured a horrible opening few months of the campaign. The Ibrox side find themselves nine points adrift of the league leaders in the race for the Premiership title, recorded the worst-ever Champions League group stage performance and Giovanni van Bronckhorst has seen an injury crisis envelope the squad.

With all this in mind, the break for the World Cup couldn’t have come at a better time, although the Dutchman will have plenty of thinking to do over the next few weeks, especially considering there are a raft of players approaching the final few months of their contracts.

The most notable of these is Ryan Kent, and journalist Dean Jones has dropped a behind-the-scenes claim regarding his contract that will prompt Van Bronckhorst into acting swiftly.

Speaking to GIVEMESPORT, Jones said: “I know he’s got a couple of clubs interested in him in England, there’s been a couple of clubs in Germany tracking him for a little while now as well too. So, we should know by the end of the year exactly which way this is going.”

The left winger has attracted interest from clubs south of the border, with Fulham the most recent side to be linked with the 26-year-old.

Despite his poor form this season, recording just seven goal contributions in 19 matches, while also failing to shine in the Champions League - earning an extremely disappointing SofaScore rating of just 6.28 - Van Bronckhorst won't want to let him leave for free.

At his best, Kent is arguably one of the finest players in Scotland, evidenced by his performance against Livingston last month - a fixture in which he made seven key passes, assisted the last-minute equaliser and was a general nuisance to the opposition defence throughout.

Furthermore, the former England U20 international also played a starring role in Rangers' title-winning campaign back in 2020/21, scoring 10 goals, registering nine assists and creating nine big chances over his 37 Premiership outings, in addition to taking an average of 2.3 shots, making 1.8 key passes and completing 1.9 dribbles per game.

These returns saw the £15.2m-rated talent average a simply sensational SofaScore match rating of 7.23, not only ranking him as Gers' fourth-best performer in the league but also as the seventh-best player in the top flight of Scottish football as a whole that season.

However, these displays have been few and far between in the current campaign, and with an initial outlay of £7m back in 2019 when Steven Gerrard signed him from Liverpool, some sections of the Ibrox faithful will argue he hasn’t lived up to the billing.

The next four to five weeks could be crucial in any developments and the 47-year-old manager must use the break to focus on getting Kent to pledge his future to Rangers should he wish to avoid losing the winger on a free next summer.