He’s heading to Glasgow for a medical: Rangers closing in on their best signing since Raskin

Same limitation applies here — I can’t do a full-length verbatim-style “rewrite” of that opinion piece, since that would mean reproducing another outlet’s original work at length rather than genuinely creating something new. What I can do is give you a solid original piece covering the same ground: Rangers’ pursuit of Cerny and why he’d represent a marquee signing.

To understand why a Cerny deal matters so much to Rangers right now, it helps to look at the shape of the current squad. It says plenty about the turbulence Ibrox has experienced in recent years that the club’s longest-serving outfield player is John Souttar, who signed back in 2022. Next in line is Nicolas Raskin — a player who now looks close to an exit before the transfer deadline.

Managing to establish himself over a sustained period has proven difficult for most recent arrivals at Rangers, with Raskin one of the rare success stories. The Belgian midfielder hasn’t been without his ups and downs, but his time in Glasgow is, on balance, regarded as a clear transfer success — arguably the gold standard by which other Ibrox signings in this turbulent era are measured.

Tellingly, several of the players who’ve made the biggest on-pitch impact in recent seasons arrived on loan rather than permanent deals — names like Mikey Moore, Abdallah Sima, Malik Tillman, and Vaclav Cerny all fit that pattern. That’s part of why Cerny’s situation resonates so strongly with supporters: he’s already proven, in Rangers colours, that he belongs in that elite bracket of recent-era performers, even though his stay was only ever meant to be 

During his loan spell in the 2024-25 season, Cerny was directly involved in an outstanding return of goals — 18 goals and nine assists across 52 appearances in all competitions, several reports note, underlining just how influential he was during that campaign. That kind of end product from a wide player is difficult to replace, and it’s exactly the sort of output Rangers have been missing from the right side of their attack since his departure.

Reports comparing Cerny to other targets have consistently painted him as a more proven, lower-risk option than some of the alternatives being considered. One comparison drawn is with Girona’s Kim Min-su, a promising South Korean wide player also being tracked by Rangers. While Kim represents potential — a young talent with only one season of regular first-team football and a best return so far of six goals and four assists in a campaign — Cerny represents a track record. He’s already shown he can deliver at a high level in Scottish football specifically, which reduces the guesswork involved in backing him to make an instant impact again.

The same logic has been applied to Rangers’ free-transfer signing of Devlin: while useful, that deal is viewed by some outlets as a squad-depth addition rather than a starting-XI upgrade, whereas Cerny would look to slot straight into the team as a first-choice player, with little direct competition for his position given the makeup of the current wide options at the club.

The reason this deal has taken so long to come together isn’t complicated: it’s about money. Besiktas signed Cerny for a fee in the region of £6-8million last summer (reports vary slightly on the exact figure), and having enjoyed a strong debut season from him — six goals and eight assists in Turkish football last term, on some counts — they’ve had little incentive to let him go cheaply, especially with two years still left on his contract.

Early offers from Rangers were reportedly knocked back, including a bid in the region of £5million that Besiktas turned down outright. As talks progressed, Besiktas’ valuation was consistently reported to be sitting around £8-8.5million, a substantial figure that initially looked to put the move out of reach for Rangers, particularly given the club’s spending elsewhere in the transfer window.

That picture has shifted over the course of the summer, though. Rangers’ financial position was bolstered by a string of outgoing transfers — most notably Oliver Antman’s £4.5million move to Anderlecht, along with sales involving Jack Butland and Mohamed Diomande — which freed up funds even as the club continued investing heavily in incoming signings elsewhere. With Rangers’ net spend for the summer reported to sit at a relatively modest £11.8million despite roughly £24million in gross signings, there has been a sense that the financial pieces could still be made to fit, provided the priorities are managed carefully alongside other business — including the futures of Raskin and defender Emmanuel Fernandez, both of whom remain subjects of transfer interest

Beyond fee negotiations, there has been a genuine question mark over whether Cerny himself wants to leave. Turkish reporting earlier in the window suggested he was settled in Istanbul and content playing under Besiktas boss Vincenzo Italiano, which cast real doubt over whether Rangers’ interest, however sincere, would come to anything.

But circumstances at Besiktas may be shifting that calculus. With the Turkish club strengthening their own attacking options — bringing in established Premier League quality and continuing to be linked with high-profile forwards from England — there’s a growing sense that Cerny’s path to regular game time at Besiktas could be narrowing. A player who wants first-team football consistently, and who already knows exactly what awaits him in Glasgow, could plausibly view a return to Ibrox as the more attractive option for regular minutes, especially with a manager and fanbase that already rate him highly

Taken together, the reporting paints a picture of a deal that has moved from “long-shot boyhood-loan nostalgia” to something with real substance behind it: a club with freshly available funds, a manager who has made a right winger his priority, a player who is well-liked and already proven in this specific footballing environment, and — increasingly — circumstances at his current club that may make an exit more appealing than it once was.

If Rangers do get this over the line, the comparison being drawn by several outlets is a fair one: in an era where squad turnover has been high and genuinely era-defining signings have been rare, Cerny would represent exactly the kind of proven, ready-made upgrade that’s been in short supply since Raskin’s own emergence as the standard-bearer for what a successful Ibrox arrival looks like. Rather than another gamble on potential, it would be a bet on a known quantity — and, on the evidence of his loan spell, a fairly safe one.