By Mark Pirie
Rangers hope to bring in Conor Coady from Leicester City this week – and he has been backed to a bigger success than Cameron Carter-Vickers. That is the view of Kevin Gallacher – with the former Scotland international branding the Celtic defender as a “benchmark” for Coady should a switch to Ibrox get over the line. The former England international has been a long-term target for sporting director Kevin Thelwell since he was appointed over the summer having worked with Coady at Wolves and Everton. Speaking exclusively to Record Sport , Jermain Defoe revealed that his pal Coady is keen on a switch to the Light Blues this summer. And Gallacher reckons that if Russell Martin is able to snap up the defender he could surpass the four-time Premiership title winner Carter-Vickers. Writing for the Sunday Post , he said: “I fancy Conor Coady, Rangers’ big signing target, could do even better in Scotland than Cameron Carter-Vickers has at Celtic. “At 32 years old, he is a very experienced central defender. He has 10 England caps and, when you look at the central defenders of his era, that marks him out as being very good “Some people would argue he is a gamble in terms of his age, but I am a believer that age is just a number. “He is maybe losing a tiny bit of pace, but he gets the job done. He is a proper defender, a leader, an organiser who can have the back line working together as one. If there was a question about Coady it would not be over his ability. “What I would not be sure about is his hunger. Does he have the drive to come up to a new environment and impose himself on the game up here? That’s what Rangers will need him to do. “I mentioned Carter-Vickers at the start because that has got to be benchmark. Ange Postecoglou brought him up to Celtic , initially on a season-long loan from Tottenham, who had farmed him out half-a-dozen times before that. “He found his home at Celtic Park, with his permanent deal suiting both parties very well, not least because of all the trophies they have won since he has been there. That will need to be the goal for Coady at Ibrox.” Reports south of the border have also linked Peterborough’s Emmanuel Fernandez with a move Rangers this summer. And Gallacher reckons a centre-back partnership could turn the 23-year-old into the next Calvin Bassey. The former Blackburn Rovers striker said: “Another who could well be heading to Ibrox, albeit as a quite different type of recruit is Emmanuel Fernandez, of Peterborough. “He is just 23 and was in non-league football not so long ago having been released by Gillingham as an under-18. “Since then, he has worked his way back up to Peterborough’s first team and we all know there some amazing stories of players putting early rejection behind them to go on to remarkable things in the game. “I would say Fernandez is looking at a bit of a jump up in standard as he has been playing League One, but he might go onto shine. “Do that and he might earn himself a move back down the road at a higher level. Scotland can work as a shop window that way. “Again, it is easy to think of an example, with Calvin Bassey the perfect pick-up. He came up from Leicester, where he had been a regular for the Under-18 and Under-23 sides, excelled in the Rangers’ first team and then was sold to Ajax for 拢20 million. “Now in the Premier League at Fulham, he was the London club’s player of the year last season.”