Shankland set to join Rangers from Hearts

Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland is close to joining Scottish Premiership rivals Rangers.

The Scotland forward, 30, has been consistently linked with the Ibrox club and is set to become Danny Rohl's first signing of the close season.

Shankland led Hearts to second place this season, with the Tynecastle side missing out on the title to Celtic on the final day. Since joining Hearts in 2022, the forward has scored 88 goals in 171 appearances.

He has the fourth most goals in the Premiership since the league was established in 2013, with a league haul of 77 putting him one behind former Rangers forward Alfredo Morelos.

In total, Shankland has scored 236 goals in 494 club appearances and has netted four times in 18 international appearances.

Shankland moved to Hearts in 2022 after a year in Belgium with Beerschot. He previously played in his homeland with Aberdeen and Dundee United in the Premiership and Ayr United and Queen's Park in the lower leagues. He was also loaned out by Aberdeen to Dunfermline Athletic, Greenock Morton and St Mirren.

His most recent Scotland goal came in the World Cup qualification-clinching win over Denmark in November and he was one of five strikers named in Steve Clarke's squad for this summer's finals.

After the Scots face Curacao at Hampden on Saturday, they travel to the United States for a final warm-up game with Bolivia in New Jersey before Group C games with Haiti, Morocco and Brazil. The first two fixtures are in Massachusetts and the final group game takes place in Florida.

Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh spoke last Sunday about the club's need for leaders, ideally Scottish leaders and gnarled professionals.

He never mentioned Lawrence Shankland but almost didn't need to. The striker is everything he was describing. Rangers are not particularly lacking for goals - they outscored Celtic and Hearts in the Premiership in the season just gone - but they need steel and presence and Shankland provides that.

It was evident on Friday that things were moving quickly. It's still not definite - as of now he has not signed and there's still a medical to complete - but everything is heading rapidly in the right direction from a Rangers' perspective, if not from a Hearts point of view.

Shankland is returning from holiday and final agreement would appear to be imminent. Pending any departures he would join Youssef Chermiti, Ryan Naderi, Bojan Miovski and Danilo as Danny Rohl's options up front. It's unlikely that all of those will be Rangers players come the start of the season. Shankland, if it gets done, would be the main man.

People with knowledge of the negotiations are being coy about what Rangers are paying Hearts for Shankland. Both sides are not comfortable talking about a supposed break clause in Shankland's Hearts contract that would allow him to leave for nothing, a scenario that would, no doubt, infuriate Hearts fans even further.

Losing their captain and principal scorer is bad enough but losing him for little or no money might be deemed insult added to injury. Right now, the phrases being used are 'undisclosed fee' and 'Rangers paid the required amount'.

Shankland has a prolific record for Hearts against Rangers, scoring both in a 2-0 win at Ibrox in September, getting what turned out to be the winner against them in December and in May, both times at Tynecastle.

He scored against Rangers in a 3-3 draw in May, 2024 and scored in a 3-1 loss and a 2-1 loss in November and October 2023. He's the most prolific scorer Hearts have had since the great John Robertson.

Shankland netted 20 goals for Derek McInnes' team in their near-glory season, part of which he missed through injury. He's pushing hard to start for Scotland against Haiti in the opening game of the World Cup.

For McInnes, this will come as a bitter blow. Shankland and Hearts were at a bit of a stand-off at the end of season 2024-25, a long-running dispute over salary between the club and the player's representatives threatening to see an end of him at Tynecastle.

When McInnes was appointed manager, one of the main items on his list was to keep Shankland. He was insistent he needed the striker and a deal was done. McInnes and Shankland have worked excellently together. Those days would appear to be over. Shankland to Rangers will take a lot of beating as the signing of the summer.