McCoist is a huge fan: Rangers and Celtic now racing to sign “unbelievable” forward in January

The framing in this latest piece is notably sharper than in earlier coverage — not just interest from two Scottish clubs, but a race between them specifically. That’s a familiar shape for Old Firm transfer stories: Celtic and Rangers have spent decades occasionally finding themselves chasing the same player, whether it’s a squad-need overlap or simply two clubs of similar size and ambition drawing from the same pool of realistic targets. It doesn’t happen as often as rivalry narratives might suggest — most windows, the two clubs are pursuing entirely different profiles based on their specific gaps — but when it does happen, it tends to generate exactly this kind of “race” coverage, because there’s an added psychological dimension to either club losing out specifically to the other, on top of the ordinary disappointment of missing out on a target.

Whether Dowman’s situation genuinely becomes that kind of head-to-head contest remains to be seen. Arsenal haven’t sanctioned a loan yet, and even once — if — they do, Dowman’s own preference and Arsenal’s judgment about which environment suits his development will matter more than which Scottish club moves first or loudest. But the “racing” framing does at least confirm both clubs’ interest has moved from something floated by a single interested party to a dynamic being reported as an actual competition, however early-stage.

The clearest, most concrete explanation yet for why Arsenal might actually let Dowman go out on loan rather than continue easing him into cup football is the player standing directly in his way: Bukayo Saka. It’s worth spelling out just how firmly entrenched Saka is in that right-wing position, because it puts Dowman’s situation in sharper relief than simply saying “the squad is strong.”m

Saka has been Arsenal’s first-choice right winger for years now, a position he’s held since establishing himself as a teenager himself, back when he broke into the side under a previous manager and became a senior England international by 19. He’s since become one of the most tactically distinctive wide players in the Premier League, increasingly used not just as a touchline winger but as a hybrid inside forward who drifts into central pockets to combine with Arsenal’s midfield — a more advanced, playmaking version of the raw winger he was when he first broke through. He’s a full England international with well over 50 caps, was part of England’s run to the semi-finals at the 2026 World Cup in North America, where the Three Lions finished third, and has been capped at every England youth level going back to under-16s. In domestic terms, this season alone he’s continued to be one of Arsenal’s most productive attackers even through a mid-season Achilles issue that cost him over a month of action in the spring — he still finished the 2025-26 campaign with eight goals and five assists across all competitions, and was straight back into the side once fit, scoring a decisive late goal against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on his return from injury.

Put simply, Saka isn’t a squad player Arsenal are hoping to upgrade on or rotate away from a position of weakness — he’s arguably their most important attacking player outright, a player England has built parts of its own attacking identity around heading toward the next major tournament cycle. For Dowman, that means the path to regular right-wing starts at Arsenal isn’t blocked by an ageing veteran or an out-of-form squad player who might lose his place through a bad run. It’s blocked by a 25-year-old at the peak of his powers, playing some of the best football of his career, who isn’t going anywhere. That’s precisely the kind of situation loan moves exist to solve — not a temporary dip in form elsewhere in the squad, but a structural, long-term truth about the pecking order that isn’t likely to change materially in the next twelve months regardless of how well Dowman trains or performs in cup football.

The other new piece of texture here is Dowman’s Arsenal Goal of the Season award, given for his contribution in a 2-0 win over Everton. Club “goal of the season” awards are usually voted on by supporters from a shortlist compiled by the club, meaning Dowman didn’t just impress Arteta and his coaching staff behind the scenes — he produced something visually and technically striking enough, in a single moment, to beat out contributions from Arsenal’s full first-team squad in a fan vote, at an age when most of his contemporaries would be playing academy football in front of a few hundred people. It’s a small detail, but it reinforces the broader pattern running through every version of this story: this isn’t just a hyped academy graduate who’s benefited from a favourable run of team-news headlines. He’s already producing moments senior professionals and Arsenal’s own supporters are voting as the best of an entire

It’s worth spending a bit more time on why Ally McCoist’s endorsement carries the weight it does in these stories, beyond just being a recognisable name. McCoist is Rangers’ all-time record goalscorer and one of the most decorated players in the club’s history, someone who’s remained closely tied to Ibrox in the years since retiring, both through media work and through the kind of informal influence a legendary former player retains at the club they’re associated with. When a figure like that says unprompted that he’d take a specific young player “100 per cent,” it tends to function as something close to an informal seal of approval that ripples through fan sentiment even without any official backing from the current regime.

It’s also notable that McCoist framed his support specifically around Arteta’s judgment — saying he wouldn’t have a problem with the move “if Mikel Arteta thought it was the best thing for his development.” That’s a fairly deliberate qualifier. Rather than simply saying Rangers should go and get Dowman regardless of the circumstances, McCoist tied his endorsement to Arsenal’s own assessment of what’s right for the player, which lines up with the broader tone Arteta himself has struck throughout this story — protective, development-focused, unwilling to be rushed into a decision either way. It suggests the loan is being talked about, at least by the people closest to encouraging it, less as a coup Rangers should chase aggressively and more as something that would need genuine buy-in from Arsenal’s coaching staff that it’s the right developmental step, rather than a loan being forced through by Scottish interest alone.

If this really does develop into head-to-head competition between the two clubs rather than parallel, separate interest, there are a few things likely to end up mattering more than reputation or fan excitement. Playing time is usually the single biggest factor clubs like Arsenal weigh when deciding where to send a talented academy player on loan — not just whether a club says it would play him, but whether its system, formation and current personnel genuinely create a realistic route to regular starts. That’s where Rangers’ stated hunt for a direct, one-on-one wide player under Derek McInnes could matter as much as reputation: if Rangers can point to an actual vacancy in the side that suits Dowman’s profile specifically, that’s a more persuasive pitch to Arsenal’s development staff than simply being a big, famous club.

Celtic’s pitch would presumably lean on similar logic, given the winger search that’s been ongoing there for months and the injury-enforced gaps out wide. But Celtic would also have to convince Arsenal that Dowman would be a starter rather than someone still competing for regular minutes behind whichever winger the club does eventually sign from its existing list of reported targets. If Celtic land one of the wide players they’ve been separately linked with with before January closes, that could either strengthen their pitch — showing genuine ambition to build a stronger attacking unit around him — or complicate it, by reducing the guaranteed game time on offer.

There’s also the European dimension. Both clubs are typically involved in some form of continental competition in a given season, whether Champions League, Europa League or Conference League football, and European ties, with their different styles of opposition and higher profile, are sometimes viewed by parent clubs as valuable extra experience for a young loanee, beyond just domestic league minutes. Whichever club can offer that continental exposure alongside first-team Premiership football, on top of regular starts, would likely have a real edge in any direct comparison Arsenal’s staff make between the two options.

It’s worth keeping in view, amid all this, that the most straightforward outcome remains Arsenal simply keeping Dowman through January and continuing to manage his workload carefully within the first-team picture, particularly given how frequently Arteta has stressed that decisions like this get reassessed every six months rather than rushed. Arsenal are in the middle of defending their Premier League title this season, and Arteta has shown throughout Dowman’s rapid rise that he’s willing to use him in genuinely high-stakes moments — cup ties, Champions League appearances, even Premier League minutes in a title-winning campaign — while still talking publicly about protecting him from being pushed too far, too fast. A club that careful about a player’s trajectory isn’t necessarily going to let one high-profile loan swoop from a rival Premier League club, let alone from Scotland, dictate the timeline. If Arsenal’s title defence goes deep into the business end of the season and squad rotation becomes valuable across every position, there’s a reasonable case for keeping Dowman around rather than sending him elsewhere, even with Saka firmly first-choice.

That’s the tension sitting underneath every fresh headline on this story, including this one: real, documented interest from two ambitious Scottish clubs, a specific and credible tactical rationale on both sides, a legendary former player publicly cheerleading for one of them, and a teenager already good enough to have beaten senior professionals to his own club’s fan-voted goal of the season award — set against a parent club that has given no indication it’s in any rush to make a final call, and a player blocked not by an ageing or out-of-form rival but by one of the best right-wingers in English football at the peak of his powers. Until Arsenal actually reach that six-monthly assessment point and make a decision, “racing to sign” is accurate in the sense that interest is real and specific, but premature in suggesting either club is close to actually landing him.