Rangers Deadline Day: Two Wingers Targeted, Kelsy Latest, Another Raskin Bid Received

With five hours left on the clock, Ibrox is a hive of activity — a striker signing sealed, two wingers under consideration, and Besiktas refusing to take no for an answer over Nicolas Raskin

Rangers spent the final hours of the transfer window working at a pace that belied a summer already packed with incoming business, as Derek McInnes’s side pushed to complete further additions before Scottish clubs’ 5pm Thursday deadline. With Celtic and Hearts having wrapped up the bulk of their own dealings by Wednesday night — driven by an earlier 11pm UEFA cut-off for registering players eligible for the group phases of the Europa and Conference Leagues — Rangers found themselves working to a different rhythm entirely. Having been eliminated from Conference League qualification by Czech side Jablonec, McInnes’s side face no such European registration deadline this season, freeing them to negotiate right up to the wire on both incomings and outgoings alike.

Kelsy’s arrival finally confirmed in full

Chief among the morning’s confirmed business was the completion of Kevin Kelsy’s move from Portland Timbers, with the 22-year-old Venezuela international in the country and set to be announced as a Rangers player before the deadline passed. The transfer, worth a reported £9.5m, brings to an end a pursuit that had been complicated in its final stages by visa processing delays, and secures for Rangers a long-term contract with a forward McInnes has been chasing specifically to address a gap left by injury.

Speaking after Rangers’ 2-1 win over Falkirk on Wednesday night, McInnes made clear just how central Kelsy had become to his thinking in the final days of the window. “There’s no secret that we’ve worked hard to get Kevin here, so, yeah, I think so,” the manager said. “But if we can get Kevin and add to our attacking threats, obviously with Youssef’s injury, it’s been nearly a month since he got injured, we’ve been looking for that one, and thankfully we’ve got him.” The reference to Youssef Chermiti’s continued absence — the young forward having suffered a serious injury during a defeat to Hibernian roughly a month earlier — underlines the specific tactical need Kelsy’s arrival is designed to fill, giving McInnes a genuine focal point up front to complement captain Lawrence Shankland at a moment when attacking options had been stretched thin.

Kelsy’s rise to a near-£10m Rangers signing has been a rapid one by any measure. Having begun his senior career in Venezuela’s top flight with Mineros de Guayana before spells at Shakhtar Donetsk and, on loan, FC Cincinnati, he established himself in Major League Soccer with Portland Timbers, scoring prolifically enough to attract serious interest from European clubs. His arrival at Ibrox represents one of the most significant fees the Scottish champions-elect hopefuls have committed to a single player in the club’s history, and gives McInnes a fresh centre-forward option just as the toll of Chermiti’s absence had begun to bite.

Two wingers on Rangers’ radar

Attention on deadline day, though, was not confined solely to confirming business already agreed. Rangers were reported to be exploring further reinforcements out wide, with two separate targets under consideration as the clock wound down — though it remained unclear, even as the deadline approached, whether the club intended to sign one of the pair or both.

The more advanced of the two situations centred on Stuttgart winger Badredine Bouanani, reportedly undergoing a medical ahead of a potential loan move to Ibrox with an option to buy attached. The 21-year-old Algerian international’s career has taken him through Nice’s academy and first team before a big-money switch to the German Bundesliga side the previous summer, a £12m transfer that was seen at the time as a significant statement of intent from Stuttgart as they looked to replace the attacking quality lost following a lucrative departure from their own squad. Bouanani, a left-footed operator who predominantly plays on the right flank, arrived in Germany with a growing reputation following a breakout campaign in Ligue 1, but has found regular starting opportunities hard to come by at Stuttgart, making a temporary switch to Scotland a logical route to first-team football regardless of his considerable transfer valuation.

The second name linked with a possible Ibrox move was PSV Eindhoven winger Esmir Bajraktarevic, a Bosnian international with 20 senior caps to his name after switching international allegiance from the United States, where he came through the ranks at New England Revolution before crossing the Atlantic to further his career in the Eredivisie. His link to Rangers carries a note of familiarity given the club’s transfer history this window: Rangers had previously pulled out of a deal for his PSV team-mate, Couhaib Driouech, after concerns emerged during a medical, before that deal was eventually revived and completed regardless. Whether Bajraktarevic’s situation might follow a similarly circuitous path, or whether Rangers’ focus will settle on Bouanani alone, remained genuinely unresolved as the deadline neared, leaving supporters to watch developments in real time rather than anticipate a foregone conclusion.

Besiktas refuse to let the Raskin saga rest

If Wednesday’s transfer news had appeared to draw a line under the Nicolas Raskin situation, Thursday brought fresh evidence that Besiktas were not prepared to walk away quietly. Speaking after the Falkirk win, McInnes had expressed confidence that Raskin would remain at Ibrox beyond the deadline, having already seen the Turkish club’s loan approach rejected earlier that day. But Rangers’ resolve was tested again as Besiktas returned with a revised offer — this time a permanent bid rather than a loan proposal — for the Belgian international.

That second approach fared no better than the first. According to Sky Sports, Rangers rejected the permanent offer as it fell short of the club’s own valuation of the player, with Ibrox holding firm on a specific fee they consider representative of Raskin’s worth to the squad and his continuing importance to McInnes’s midfield. Whether Besiktas choose to return with a third, improved offer remains to be seen — and the situation could yet run beyond Thursday’s Scottish deadline regardless, given the Turkish transfer window itself does not close until midnight on Friday, leaving Besiktas an extra day in which to attempt to meet Rangers’ valuation, should they wish to pursue the deal further.

The persistence of Besiktas’s interest speaks to how highly Raskin is now regarded across European football following his performances for Belgium at this summer’s World Cup. For Rangers, the situation represents a delicate balancing act: retaining one of the squad’s most important and highly-rated midfielders against the backdrop of a club that has, by its own admission, previously struggled to convert long-running transfer speculation into either a completed sale at an acceptable valuation or an emphatically closed chapter. Holding out for their stated valuation this time, rather than accepting a discounted offer simply to end the speculation, at least offers evidence of a more disciplined approach than critics of the club’s recent transfer conduct have sometimes suggested.

Potential departures still to be resolved

Beyond the headline stories involving Kelsy, the winger targets and the ongoing Raskin saga, deadline day also carried the possibility of further departures from Ibrox as McInnes continues to trim a squad that has swelled considerably following a summer of extensive incoming business.

John Souttar, now out of the first-team picture entirely at Rangers, represents a potential exit for Scottish Premiership clubs seeking an experienced defensive option, with his situation offering a straightforward case of a player whose path back into regular contention at Ibrox looks limited. Bojan Miovski, meanwhile, has similarly struggled for game-time and has reportedly attracted interest from clubs elsewhere in Europe, while Northern Irish winger Ross McCausland has been mentioned as a candidate for a loan exit that would allow him regular football away from Ibrox for the remainder of the season.

These situations sit alongside the confirmed departure of Thelo Aasgaard, whose season-long loan move to Anderlecht — completed with an option to buy attached — was finalised the previous day. Taken together, the picture emerging from Ibrox on deadline day is one of a club continuing to actively manage both ends of its squad even as the marquee incoming business dominates the headlines: trimming fringe players who have fallen out of first-team plans, resisting external interest in the players it wants to keep, and adding fresh attacking quality to address a specific gap left by injury.

A window that refuses to slow down

With less than five hours remaining before Thursday’s 5pm deadline at the time of the latest updates, the picture at Ibrox remained fluid on almost every front. Kelsy’s arrival looked all but certain to be confirmed formally before the window shut, giving McInnes the attacking reinforcement he has been chasing since Chermiti’s injury first depleted his forward options. The winger situation, by contrast, remained considerably less settled, with Bouanani’s reported medical suggesting one deal was closer to completion than the more speculative Bajraktarevic links, though nothing could be ruled in or out with total certainty until deals were either completed or the deadline passed.

The renewed Besiktas approach for Raskin added a further layer of uncertainty to a situation that had briefly appeared resolved following Wednesday’s rejection of the Turkish club’s initial loan bid — a reminder that in modern transfer windows, even a seemingly settled situation can be reopened at short notice by a determined suitor. And with Souttar, Miovski and McCausland all representing potential departures still to be finalised, Rangers’ business looked set to continue evolving right up until, and potentially even beyond, the moment the Scottish transfer window formally closed. For a club that manager Derek McInnes had already described as enduring “the longest window I can remember,” Thursday’s flurry of late activity offered little sign of that pace slowing before the final whistle sounded on this summer’s business.