6 free agent strikers Rangers could consider after ‘significant’ injury blow: Ex Liverpool ace a possible candidate
It’s the kind of misfortune that starts to feel less like bad luck and more like a pattern. Barely three weeks after Youssef Chermiti’s ACL injury forced Rangers into an emergency search for centre-forward cover — one that eventually produced the £9m deadline-day arrival of Kevin Kelsy from Portland Timbers — new captain Lawrence Shankland has become the club’s second serious injury blow up front this season. Shankland trudged off just eight minutes into Saturday’s 1-0 win over Motherwell at Ibrox, and Derek McInnes’s post-match assessment left little room for optimism.
“It looks quite significant to be honest,” McInnes said. “Similar injury we think to what he had at Hearts last year and he was out for a long period of time then. So, I think we’ll get the scan on Monday and see how it looks then rather than speculate, but I’ll only say that it does look quite significant as if he could be out for a period of time.” The manager also floated a possible explanation for the timing — a switch from artificial to grass surfaces that Shankland hasn’t been used to — before adding candidly that it was “disappointing from Lawrence’s point of view and from our point of view because obviously he was leading the line and scored a few goals in the last couple of games.”
The frustrating part of this particular injury, from a squad-building perspective, is its timing relative to the transfer calendar. Chermiti’s injury struck with enough of the summer window still open for Rangers to react in the conventional market, ultimately landing Kelsy on deadline day. Shankland’s injury arrived after that window had already shut, meaning Rangers’ only realistic route to fresh centre-forward reinforcement in the short term is the free agent pool — players available outside the usual transfer windows precisely because they’re currently without a club.
It’s against that backdrop that the question of free agent striker options has resurfaced, with six names emerging as the kind of candidates Rangers could realistically assess if McInnes and the club’s recruitment operation decide the situation calls for it
The Finnish international, most recently of Middlesbrough, offers a different profile to Shankland — more a mobile, all-action threat across the front line than a natural penalty-box poacher, so he wouldn’t represent a direct like-for-like replacement. Forss built his reputation with early promise at Brentford before a four-year spell at Middlesbrough, which ended this past summer when Boro loaned him out to Bolton Wanderers. Still only 27, he arrives with decent experience of English football even if his most recent career trajectory has trended sideways rather than upward
Few free agents carry the name recognition of Jamie Vardy, and it’s fair to say few players have been linked with quite so many clubs over the course of a single summer. The Leicester City title winner, who spent last season at Cremonese in Italy, is not retiring but also hasn’t yet settled on his next destination. That a move to Serie A came at this stage of his career suggests a player still seeking fresh challenges to finish out his playing days, and Rangers — much like they did for Jermain Defoe, whose stint at Ibrox in a similar twilight-veteran mould worked out well for the club — could plausibly offer exactly that kind of stage
At 33, turning 34 later this month, Karl Toko Ekambi brings serious pedigree if Rangers were prepared to meet his wage demands. After several years playing in the Middle East, most recently at Al-Arabi, Ekambi’s CV also includes a spell as a regular goal-getter in Ligue 1 and time in Spain with Villarreal. He wouldn’t come cheap in wage terms relative to most free agents, but in terms of the calibre of player available on a free transfer, there are few better options out there.
The most eye-catching name on the list, and the one most likely to draw Rangers supporters’ attention, is Danny Ings. The former Liverpool and England striker, most recently with Sheffield United, is already reportedly on Hibernian’s radar — and if Hibs can find a way to afford his wages for a shot at Scottish football, there’s little reason Rangers, a significantly bigger club with correspondingly greater resources, couldn’t do the same. Ings hasn’t had it easy over the last couple of seasons, but his time at Burnley, Liverpool and beyond demonstrated a genuine, sustained knack for scoring goals at a high level. In terms of profile, he’d represent a more Shankland-esque option than most of the alternatives on this list — a recognised penalty-box finisher rather than a mobile, all-round l
Anthony Martial remains one of the most talked-about free agents in world football, purely on the strength of ability that was never seriously in doubt during his nine-year stint at Manchester United. The subsequent chapters of his career — spells at Sevilla, AEK Athens, and most recently Monterrey in Mexico — simply haven’t worked out. Money would be an obvious factor in any move, and Martial may need to significantly lower his valuation to rebuild his stock back in Europe, but at only 30 years old, he should by rights be entering the peak years of his career rather than searching for a new club on a fre
A genuine curveball on this list is Pavol Safranko, whose name will mean little to more casual Rangers observers but who actually has history with the club stretching back years. Rangers were credited with interest in the Slovakian striker as far back as 2019, when he was starring for Dundee United, racking up 40 appearances and 15 goals at Tannadice. Since then, Safranko’s career has taken him through South Africa, Romania and Azerbaijan, most recently captaining Champions League-bound Sabah, for whom he scored 18 times in 55 appearances, before a serious knee injury and subsequent surgery last November derailed his season. At 31, and still building his fitness back up after that procedure, he’d be a genuine wildcard pick — but if he can prove his fitness, his recent goal-scoring record suggests there’s still a useful player there
None of this necessarily means Rangers will move for any of these six names — free agent business of this kind tends to be assessed reactively, contingent on exactly how bad Monday’s scan results turn out to be, and how confident McInnes feels in Kelsy and Ryan Naderi carrying the goalscoring burden in Shankland’s absence in the meantime. But with the conventional transfer market now closed until January, and with Rangers already navigating one long-term forward absence in Chermiti before Shankland’s setback, the free agent pool represents the only avenue realistically open to the club if it decides the situation demands fresh firepower before the turn of the year.
For now, all eyes turn to Monday’s scan and the clarity it should provide on exactly how long Rangers will be without their captain — and by extension, just how seriously McInnes and the Ibrox hierarchy need to start taking a market that, on paper at least, still holds a handful of interesting and varied options.
