JIM Duffy has approached Rangers regarding the possibility of extending Luca Gasparotto’s loan in January, the Tele can exclusively reveal.

The Morton manager recently contacted Gers head of academy Craig Mulholland to seek clearance to play the Canadian international in tomorrow’s Scottish Cup tie against Albion Rovers.

Whilst making that enquiry, Duffy decided to ask the question on Gasparotto’s future and says he expects to hear back from the Ibrox outfit soon.

He told the Tele: “I spoke to Craig Mulholland last week and he was having a meeting with Mark Warburton on Thursday.

“I spoke to him briefly about the loan arrangement to start with because he [Gasparotto] is on loan until January [and] just to find out what Rangers thoughts are.

“I also asked if he would be available to play [in the Scottish Cup]. He had the meeting with the manager in the afternoon and sent an email saying we had permission for Luca to play, which was good.

“I think they’ll review things and make a decision on that [extending Gasparotto’s loan] and get back to us in due course. I would guess that would be quite soon.

“But the player has got to want to be here as well, we’ve got to want to have him, Rangers have to want him to come back, so there are three elements to it.

“There are probably four elements if you think about it: somebody else might want him, might want to buy him, so from that perspective there might be other aspects that change things.

“But at this moment in time, he’s done really well for us, we’re delighted with him, we’ve asked the question and we’ll wait on Rangers getting back to us.”