10 free agents Celtic, Rangers and Premiership clubs can sign after deadline day to fill problem positions
LThe transfer window may have closed with the usual slam of deadline-day drama, but for Scottish Premiership clubs still nursing gaps in their squads, the story does not necessarily end there. The free agent market remains very much open for business, offering a route to strengthen problem positions without the constraints of transfer fees or negotiating with selling clubs, and with Celtic and Hearts having spent this window building for both domestic and European campaigns, while Rangers backed Derek McInnes with a genuinely substantial outlay across fourteen incoming signings, there could still be gaps elsewhere in the Premiership that clubs look to fill from the pool of experienced, out-of-contract talent currently searching for a new home.
Starting at the back, where a couple of genuinely eye-catching names remain available for any Premiership club willing to take a chance. Conor Coady finds himself on the lookout for a new club after ripping up his contract with Wrexham this week, a startling turn of events for an England international central defender who only moved to Wales for a reported £2million fee last summer, a switch that came amid reported interest from Rangers themselves at the time he was leaving Leicester City. Coady’s recent career path has been a difficult one to read, spending six months of last season on loan at Charlton Athletic without managing to nail down a settled role, and having yet to feature at all in the Championship this season before the Wrexham move was torn up altogether. For a Premiership club in need of genuine leadership and top-flight defensive experience at centre-back, Coady’s availability represents a name well worth monitoring, even if his recent lack of regular football raises legitimate questions about match sharpness that any interested club would need to factor into their thinking.
Tyrell Malacia offers a rather different proposition at the same end of the pitch, a left-back who finds himself at a genuine career crossroads after his troubled spell at Manchester United finally came to an end. The twenty-seven-year-old endured four largely injury-ravaged years at Old Trafford, a stint that promised so much when he first arrived from Feyenoord but which ultimately delivered only sporadic appearances hampered by persistent fitness problems, and he now finds his contract allowed to expire as he looks to reboot a career that once carried genuine international pedigree for the Netherlands. Malacia has previously been linked with Celtic, and the appeal of taking a punt on a player with his underlying talent and continental pedigree, assuming his fitness genuinely checks out, is not difficult to understand for a club with the medical resources and patience to manage his recovery properly. The risk, inevitably, lies in whether those four years of persistent injury trouble have taken a lasting toll, but the reward, should he rediscover anything close to his pre-Old Trafford form, could represent one of the market’s genuine bargains.
Moving into midfield, Tom Davies presents an intriguing option for a Premiership club willing to offer a fresh environment to a player still, remarkably, only twenty-eight years old despite having already accumulated well over a decade of senior experience. Davies brought his three-year spell at Sheffield United to a close last summer after injury curtailed his final season at Bramall Lane, a frustrating conclusion to a stint that had shown flashes of the energetic, box-to-box quality that once made him such a promising prospect during his Everton academy days and earned him England Under-21 recognition. A switch north of the border, offering regular football in a genuinely competitive league away from the specific pressures that seemed to weigh on him during his time in South Yorkshire, could represent exactly the career revival opportunity Davies needs at this relatively pivotal stage.
Greg Docherty’s availability will likely generate the most immediate domestic interest of anyone on this list, given his genuine Scottish football pedigree and his recent track record in English football. The Scot made a surprise exit from Charlton Athletic this week, leaving The Valley by mutual consent having played a significant role in guiding the club to League One promotion back in 2025 and remaining a key figure across ninety appearances in the English second tier last season. That kind of consistent, high-volume Championship experience, allied to his familiarity with Scottish football from his earlier career, makes Docherty a genuinely appealing option for any Premiership midfield in need of reinforcement, and it is notable that Aberdeen had already made enquiries about the player earlier this summer before his Charlton exit was finalised, suggesting at least one Premiership club has already identified him as a target worth pursuing now that he is available on a free.
Ryan Kent’s situation carries rather more poignancy for Rangers supporters specifically, given his history at Ibrox, but his current circumstances tell a cautionary tale about how quickly a career can unravel once it moves away from a settled, successful environment. The twenty-nine-year-old has been without a club since departing Seattle Sounders back in November 2025, a spell in MLS that followed his big-money move to Fenerbahce in 2024 upon leaving Rangers, a switch that at the time appeared to represent a lucrative and ambitious next step but which instead saw his contract in Turkey torn up just sixteen months after he had left Scottish football behind. That rapid unravelling, from Rangers regular to Fenerbahce big-money arrival to a contract termination and then a further unsuccessful stint in America, paints the picture of a player whose career has lost considerable momentum since his Ibrox days, and any Premiership club considering a reunion, whether with Rangers themselves or elsewhere, would need to weigh the risk of that recent trajectory against the undoubted quality he showed during his best years in Scottish football.
Joe Aribo occupies a similarly reflective spot on this list, a player with a genuine place in Rangers history courtesy of his goal in the club’s Europa League final defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt, but who now finds himself very much in need of a career lifeline rather than being courted as any kind of marquee reunion target. The thirty-year-old brought the curtain down on a four-year stay at Southampton last summer, a stint that ultimately petered out following a disappointing six-month loan spell at Leicester City that did little to reignite the form that once made him one of Scottish football’s most coveted box-to-box midfielders. Like Kent, Aribo’s story is one of a player who left Ibrox for what seemed, at the time, like a natural and deserved step up, only to find that career momentum considerably harder to sustain away from Govan than it had proven while he was there, and his current availability offers any interested Premiership club a low-risk, potentially high-reward gamble on a player who, on his day, remains capable of considerably more than his recent form south of the border has suggested.
Turning to the frontline, where the free agent market currently offers a genuinely fascinating spread of experienced options ranging from the truly veteran to the merely unfortunate. Jamie Vardy’s continued availability at thirty-nine years old remains one of English and European football’s more remarkable ongoing storylines, a striker who spent thirteen years establishing himself as a Leicester City institution before a solitary season at Cremonese in Italy ended prematurely following the club’s relegation to Serie B, a drop that prompted Cremonese to let their veteran frontman go rather than persist with his considerable wages in the second tier. A host of English clubs are said to be tracking Vardy even at this advanced stage of his career, and while a Scottish Premiership move for a player of his profile might seem, on the surface, an unlikely fit given the pull of English interest, his sheer proven goalscoring pedigree at the very highest level means no genuinely ambitious club anywhere should rule out at least exploring the possibility, however long the odds of actually landing him might realistically be.
Danny Ings represents a rather more realistic target for genuine Premiership interest, and Hibernian in particular are reported to be considering a move for the free agent striker following a genuinely unfortunate turn of events in the English market. Ings, who spent last season on the books at Sheffield United, had looked to be closing in on a move to Leicester City earlier in this same window, only for that switch to collapse entirely and leave the experienced forward in limbo as deadline day passed him by without a new club secured. For a Premiership side like Hibs, weighing up whether to make a move for a striker with genuine Premier League pedigree and a proven goalscoring record across spells at Burnley, Southampton, Liverpool and Aston Villa earlier in his career, Ings’s continued availability represents exactly the kind of opportunistic, post-deadline pickup that could yet prove one of the shrewder pieces of business conducted by any Scottish club this year, even with the England window having already shut around him.
Rounding out the frontline options, Matty Kennedy brings a wealth of specifically Scottish Premiership experience that some of the other names on this list simply cannot match. The thirty-one-year-old has had two separate spells at Kilmarnock across his career, alongside stints at Hibs, St Johnstone and Aberdeen, giving him a genuinely comprehensive working knowledge of exactly what it takes to succeed in Scottish domestic football, having last featured for Kilmarnock during the previous campaign before his contract situation left him searching for his next move. That kind of proven, ready-made SPFL pedigree makes Kennedy a considerably lower-risk option than some of the more speculative names elsewhere on this list, a winger who would not require the same adjustment period that a returning player from English or European football might need before hitting his stride in Scottish conditions.
Kyle Vassell completes the list, and his situation underlines just how global and varied the pathways of modern lower-league and SPFL football have become. The former Kilmarnock captain was recently back in Scotland taking part in the PFA’s player showcase event, a clear signal of his continued availability and eagerness to find a new club, having brought an end to a spell in American football with Colorado Springs Switchbacks. Vassell’s Premiership pedigree from his time leading the line and captaining Kilmarnock gives any interested top-flight club a proven, experienced option to call upon, and his participation in the PFA showcase suggests he remains fully fit and actively seeking exactly the kind of opportunity that a Premiership club looking to fill a specific problem position at forward could realistically offer him.
Taken together, these ten names paint a genuinely varied picture of the kind of value that remains available in the free agent market even after a transfer window as active and expensive as this one has proven across the Scottish Premiership. There is genuine top-flight pedigree in Coady and Vardy, however far advanced or recently turbulent their respective circumstances might currently be. There is unfulfilled potential still waiting to be rediscovered in Malacia and Davies, both still relatively young for their level of prior experience and both searching for the kind of settled, patient environment that might yet unlock what injury and circumstance have so far denied them. There is proven, ready-made Scottish football know-how in Docherty, Kennedy and Vassell, players who would require minimal adjustment time to contribute at Premiership level from the moment they walked through the door. And there is the cautionary, if still tantalising, pull of former Ibrox favourites in Kent and Aribo, both still young enough at twenty-nine and thirty respectively to have plenty of football left in them, even if their recent career trajectories away from Rangers have not gone entirely to plan.
For Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and every other club across the Premiership still nursing a specific problem position as the new domestic season gathers pace, the message from this collection of available talent is a clear one: the transfer window closing is very much a beginning rather than an ending when it comes to squad building. Free agents carry none of the transfer-fee complications and negotiating headaches that defined so much of deadline day’s frantic business, and for clubs prepared to move decisively and offer the right terms, there remains genuine value, whether in the form of proven pedigree, rediscovered potential, or straightforward Scottish football know-how, sitting readily available for any manager willing to pick up the phone in these first few days of the new domestic campaign
