If this is true, I am worried. We have spent, according to various websites who I have no reason to doubt, around £70,000 on a player who is untried at SPL level. He has played three seasons in the First Division for County and, from what I can gather, was the real stand-out for the first for the first half of last season.
We have signed players in the past like Alan Morgan and Ian Black for no transfer fee and I don't think there's any real reason to suspect that Rankin is significantly better than either of them, although obviously I hope if JR signs he will be a huge success for us.
One worrying thing about this is that it perhaps suggests taht Charlie doesn't have the breadth of contacts in the game that Brewster had. Brewster obviously knew people in England to get in Alan Morgan, Tom Parratt and Ben Jackson and had links with Rangers to bring in fetai. Charlie's first move is to break our record transfer fee for a relatively high profile player like Rankin.
here's hoping I am proved wrong.