RANGERS' incoming fee of £8million for Carlos Cuellar is the third time in recent times that Premiership millions have swelled the Ibrox coffersin exchange for defenders.

But the burning question this morning on the mind of every one of the club's supporters is exactly how much of Aston Villa's cash will Walter Smith see?

Reaction Rangers official statement DETAILS were finalised this evening with Aston Villa Football Club for the transfer of Carlos Cuellar, subject to him passing a medical tomorrow. On Sunday morning the player and his representatives informed the club it was their desire to invoke an exit clause for 10 million euros and today an offer for that amount was received from Aston Villa. An offer to extend the player's contract and to increase his salary substantially was declined as the player was adamant it was his desire to leave and play in the Premiership. Carlos Cuellar I CAME to Rangers due to the professional manner of their officials and management and their promise of success. Everything I had been told about this fantastic club has been true and last year's Uefa Cup run is something I will never forget. My ambition has always been to play for my national team and I believe that playing in the biggest league in the world for Aston Villa will help me realise that. When I told Martin Bain on Sunday that I wanted to leave, I did so with sadness. The Rangers supporters have been fantastic to me, but I am young and want to play at the highest level and I hope they will always welcome me back. I want to thank them for everything. Walter Smith THIS has come as a surprise and I am disappointed. Carlos Cuellar has been a great player for the football club and inevitably there has been speculation about him playing in the Premiership. The club has received a substantial uplift in fee and we will now reinvest in the team. John Brown, former Rangers defender who scouted Cuellar at Osasuna IT'S a dilema for Rangers. On one hand Walter is trying to win the league back, but on the other the financial loss from failing to make Europe is massive. Carlos was Player of the Year last season. There are others at Rangers who could come into his place but they are deputies for a reason. Selling players just makes the job of winning the league back even tougher. Rangers' focus for this season is to win the title, but to do that they need their best players.

Will this booty be absorbed into the accounts to offset the financially crippling damage of last weeks' defeat in Kaunas that ended European involvement for a year?

If that is the road Rangers hierarchy chose to go down, they are playing one dangerous game with the patience of their already disgruntled legions, and also showing no sign of learning from previous, costly mistakes.

Back in January 2005, Jean-Alain Boumsong was sold to Newcastle United for a similar amount as will arrive for Cuellar. The then manager, Alex McLeish, re-invested almost all of that £8m, bringing back Barry Ferguson, and signing Thomas Buffel, Soto Kyrgiakos and Ronald Waterreus.

Whilst the loss of Boumsong was a shattering blow at the time, and married in with a season-ending injury to Stefan Klos which many feared would be too much for Rangers to cope with, it actually funded a push that saw Rangers win the title that season in such dramatic fashion.

Fast forward three years, and a whopping £9m arrived from London for Alan Hutton just when Rangers found themselves in a position of some strength in January. They led Celtic in the league championship, and were through to the last 32 of the Uefa Cup.

The Tottenham offer for Hutton, a young player who had really only been a major performer for one season, was too much to resist. But, as fans waited to see who would arrive before that January window closed, they were left disappointed.

Rangers' only business was a loan move for Steven Davis, and the arrivals of Christian Dailly and Neil Alexander. As the window slammed shut it was viewed as a quite pivotal moment, and one that would be thrown back in Sir David Murray and Martin Bain's faces if they title was lost.

While Celtic had tooled up with the likes of Georgios Samaras, Barry Robson and Andreas Hinkel in the winters sales, their rivals opted to go with what they had. In the fall-out from fixture chaos, accusations of SPL agendas and a quite unprecedented end to their season, the decision not to splash out some of the Hutton money on a couple of major signings appeared to be lost in the debris.

Now, as they find themselves back at almost a similar juncture, can the Rangers management afford to go down the same road? Cuellar's departure is a massive loss to a side that has so little in the way of quality.

In fact, until the return of injured skipper Ferguson in November, keeper Allan McGregor is the only player of genuine class currently available to the manager, Smith.

Cuellar cannot be blamed for leaping out the escape hatch. He arrived from Osasuna 13 months ago for £2.3m and has been a quite superb defender, his stock soaring with some colossal performances during that run to the Uefa Cup Final last season.

The minute Linas Pilibaitis's header hit the net in Lithuania last week there was an air of inevitability about his departure. Indeed, you could trace the signing of Madjid Bougherra just 11 days ago as possibly Rangers covering themselves.

Unlike the general public, they knew this 10m euro get out clause existed. And, much is it's unpalatable to many of the club's supporters, there is not a player at Ibrox who isn't for sale.

This is Rangers 2008. They cannot resist major offers for anyone. And they were never going to get Cuellar to sign a new deal, or accept a wage rise, as he wants to play on the biggest stage, something their Champions League exit took away from him.

Now, with a crunch triple-header looming against Hearts, Aberdeen and Celtic before the end of this month, do Rangers go down the Boumsong route, or the Hutton road?

Which path they chose before this transfer window closes could prove to be absolutely defining in the eyes of a support that might not be able to take much more.