Cammy Devlin is no stranger to a contentious transfer. Back in 2021 the new Rangers midfielder was being hailed as an inspired signing by Newcastle Jets after the A-League club had managed to entice him back to Australia from Wellington Phoenix on a two-year deal.
Devlin, though, wouldn’t kick a single ball for the Jets. A clause was inserted into his contract that meant he could move on should a European club come in and agree to meet a certain release fee.
Hearts were that club, shelling out a five-figure sum to bring the then 23-year to Scotland, much to the frustration of some Jets staff and supporters, as the player sheepishly admitted after arriving in Edinburgh.
‘It is awkward and I feel a bit bad because I signed for Newcastle with no intention of going anywhere,’ he said at the time. ‘(The Jets fans) were frustrated because I was a signed player but I’m grateful how it worked out.’
Five years on, however, and the tables have turned. This time it is the Hearts fans left angry and disappointed at seeing Devlin move on for a new, more appealing challenge.
There is less of a surprise element around this one given negotiations regarding a contract extension at Tynecastle had dragged on since the start of the year without ever looking like reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
Devlin has completed a move to Rangers, five years after joining Hearts
The Australian has followed his former Hearts manager Derek McInnes to Ibrox
Hearts finally gave up on Friday, announcing that Devlin had failed to meet their deadline to take up a new deal that seemingly would have made him the highest paid player at the club.
Reports earlier in the year had suggested Devlin would likely end up either moving down south or to Major League Soccer in America but the goalposts have very much shifted since those days.
The departures of manager Derek McInnes and then club captain Lawrence Shankland from Tynecastle to Rangers in two seismic transfer bombshells have drastically altered the Scottish football landscape.
If moving to Ibrox would have made sense for Devlin even before either of those deals materialised, then it became a virtual no-brainer once McInnes was installed as manager.
That possibility became a reality yesterday when Devlin completed a two-year deal, with the option of an additional 12 months on top of that. It brings to an end a five-year stint at Tynecastle in which Devlin grew to become one of the most influential midfielders in the division across 171 appearances. To run further salt into already tender wounds, Hearts, unlike the Newcastle Jets back in 2021, won’t receive a penny in compensation.
That is the least of their worries, however. The pain of missing out on the Premiership title by mere minutes on the final day of the season has given way to a prolonged period of turmoil and doubt.
The idea that Hearts, supported by Tony Bloom and Jamestown Analytics, had become thoroughbreds in an annual three-horse race now looks less certain.
Lawrence Shankland is another of the Tynecastle contingent to move along the M8 this summer
An element of summer turnover was always expected – the Jamestown player trading model is based on buying low and selling high – but Hearts fans could be forgiven if it feels too much at this point to be asked to go all-in on version 2.0 after coming so close but falling short last time around.
Rangers have not just taken three of their most precious assets but a hefty chunk of their soul and spirit, too.
Restoring faith and hope, as much as rebuilding a fractured squad, will therefore be one of the key challenges for Hearts’ new head coach Wouter Vrancken as the new campaign looms into view.
If Devlin’s departure was greeted with a collective despondent sigh around Gorgie, then they were hardly setting off firecrackers in celebration at the other end of the M8 once his arrival was confirmed to a mixed, even muted, response.
Expectation around Rangers has shot through the roof following McInnes’ arrival. A squad that under-performed for long spells under both Russell Martin and then Danny Rohl is being torn apart and rebuilt with a view to providing a sustained and credible challenge for the title next season.
As one of the best defensive midfielders in the country, Devlin’s signing ought to enhance those prospects, especially being reunited with a manager who helped get the best out of him last season.
The Australian international – an unused substitute in the Socceroos’ World Cup campaign – has become one of Scottish football’s best-known pantomime villains, a figure whose tenacity and willing to fight for every lost cause – fairly or otherwise – makes him both detested, but also secretly respected, by rival fanbases.
Devlin has evolved and matured during his five years in this country to become a more rounded operator. But it is still the work he does without the ball – the tackles, the interceptions and that desire to disrupt the opposition’s flow with whatever it takes – that remains his key attribute.
At times the 28-year-old can be overzealous, as the number of yellow cards to his name will attest, but his spark and spirit should imbue Rangers with a sense of urgency too often lacking in recent years.
As Devlin joins Rangers, fans wait to see if he can have the same influence as at Hearts
The lukewarm reaction to his signing, then, is less about Devlin’s qualities and more to do with a perceived squad imbalance.
Rangers, frankly, have midfielders coming out of their ears. Nicolas Raskin and Connor Barron could both move on in the coming weeks but that still leaves Tochi Chukwuani, recent recruit Dan Neil, Mohamed Diomande, Lyall Cameron, Jose Cifuentes and Nedim Bajrami on the payroll.
Moves for Partizan Belgrade captain Vanja Dragojevic, Tromso’s Jens Hjerto-Dahl and possibly also Lewis Ferguson are also in the pipeline. So, if Rangers supporters aren’t turning cartwheels at Devlin’s signing it is because it serves an area of the pitch where they are already spoiled for choice.
That, though, feels very much like a first world problem. For if taken in isolation, the capture of an experienced midfielder from a league rival on a free transfer feels like a very good bit of business indeed. And his new team-mates will surely be delighted to be finally playing alongside Devlin rather than once more going up against this most ferocious of competitors.
