Rangers Eye Bargain Route Into Amario Cozier-Duberry Chase As Brighton Hold Firm On £5m Valuation For League One Standout

Rangers have been strongly linked with a summer swoop for Brighton & Hove Albion winger Amario Cozier-Duberry, with reports out of England suggesting the Ibrox club have identified the 21-year-old as a genuine option to add much-needed pace and flair to their attacking options ahead of the new campaign. According to TEAMtalk, Brighton are demanding a fee in the region of £5 million for the youngster, a figure that reflects both his undoubted promise and the growing confidence Premier League clubs tend to place in academy graduates who show flashes of real quality out on loan, even when that form has come outside the English top flight.

Cozier-Duberry’s stock has risen sharply on the back of an outstanding campaign at Bolton Wanderers last season, where he spent the year on loan in League One and delivered numbers that instantly caught the eye of recruitment departments across the country. Across 37 appearances for the Lancashire club, the winger managed to find the net nine times while also chipping in with ten assists, a genuinely productive return for a young wide player still very much in the early stages of his development. That kind of output in England’s third tier does not go unnoticed, and it appears to have been enough to convince Rangers that here is a player worth pursuing, even at a level below where he ultimately hopes to establish himself.

Following the conclusion of his loan spell, Cozier-Duberry made his way back to Brighton for pre-season training, rejoining a squad he has struggled to break into since arriving on the south coast. Despite that reunion with his parent club, the expectation remains that he will depart once again before the new season gets fully underway, with Brighton seemingly content to cash in or send him out once more rather than integrate him immediately into their first-team plans. Rangers, for their part, have emerged as the club most heavily tipped to make a move, with suggestions that Derek McInnes and the Ibrox hierarchy see the Londoner as exactly the type of attacking spark their squad has been missing.

The player’s footballing education began at Arsenal, where he progressed through the club’s celebrated Hale End academy, a pipeline that has produced a string of talented graduates in recent years. Despite showing enough promise to be talked about as one for the future, Cozier-Duberry was never afforded the opportunity to make a senior appearance for the Gunners, and with his path to regular first-team football blocked, he opted to move on, joining Brighton on a free transfer back in the summer of 2024. It was billed at the time as a fresh start with a club renowned for developing and eventually selling on young talent at significant profit, but life on the south coast has not proven straightforward for the winger either, and he has similarly failed to force his way into Brighton’s senior setup since making the switch.

What has proven far more beneficial for his development, however, has been a pair of loan spells away from the Amex Stadium, both of which took him up to Lancashire and gave him invaluable experience of first-team football in England’s lower leagues. The first of those temporary moves came during the 2024/25 campaign, when he spent time at Blackburn Rovers in the Championship, making 22 appearances for the Ewood Park club as he adjusted to the physical demands of senior football at a higher level than academy football could offer. While that spell may not have produced eye-catching statistics, it laid important groundwork in terms of match sharpness and tactical understanding, setting him up nicely for what followed.

It was his second loan move, this time to Bolton Wanderers in League One, that truly announced Cozier-Duberry as a genuine talent worth monitoring. Freed up to express himself further forward and given a more prominent attacking role within Bolton’s system, the winger thrived, racking up those nine goals and ten assists across his 37 outings and playing a significant part in what was, by most accounts, an encouraging campaign for the club. It is that spell in particular which has prompted Rangers’ interest, with the Ibrox recruitment team clearly having tracked his progress closely enough throughout the season to identify him as a target once the transfer window opened.

The appeal for Rangers is not difficult to understand when assessing the current shape of their squad. McInnes’ side have been widely regarded as short on natural width and inventiveness in the final third, a deficiency that has periodically hampered their ability to break down well-organised defensive units, whether in domestic competition or in continental fixtures against sides set up to frustrate. A player of Cozier-Duberry’s profile, comfortable running at defenders, capable of both scoring and creating, and still young enough to have significant room for further development, represents exactly the kind of signing that could add a new dimension to the team’s attacking play. It is easy to see why the club’s hierarchy view him as someone who could inject the kind of dynamism that has, at times, been conspicuously absent from Rangers’ forward line in recent seasons.

Yet turning that interest into an actual transfer will not be entirely straightforward, given Brighton’s stated valuation of the player. A fee in the region of £5 million represents a significant outlay for a 21-year-old winger whose most eye-catching form to date has come in League One rather than at Championship level, let alone in the Premier League itself. Brighton, however, have built their entire recruitment and sales model around identifying value in young players and refusing to let them go on the cheap, regardless of which division their most productive form has come in, and there is little to suggest they will deviate from that approach when it comes to Cozier-Duberry, even with Rangers circling.

Should Brighton hold firm on their asking price, Rangers will face a decision over whether they are prepared to commit that level of investment to a player who, for all his promise, remains unproven above League One football. There is an obvious argument that paying close to £5 million for a young talent still searching for his level carries a degree of risk, particularly for a club that must balance ambitions on multiple fronts domestically and in Europe against the realities of a transfer budget that cannot be stretched indefinitely. It would not be the first time a club has paid a premium for a player whose underlying numbers were built in a lower division, only to discover that the step up to a more demanding league exposes gaps that weren’t visible before.

That is precisely why an alternative route may end up making more sense for all parties involved. Rather than committing to an outright permanent deal at Brighton’s asking price, Rangers could instead explore the possibility of taking Cozier-Duberry to Ibrox on a loan basis, ideally with an option or obligation to buy built into the structure of any agreement. Such an arrangement would allow McInnes and his coaching staff the chance to properly assess the winger’s readiness for Scottish Premiership football over the course of a season, working with him on the training ground and seeing firsthand how his undoubted talent translates against the physicality and tactical demands of the division, all without Rangers having to commit the full transfer fee upfront.

From Brighton’s perspective, there would likely be some appetite for exactly this kind of arrangement too. The Seagulls have shown throughout their recent transfer dealings that they retain considerable faith in Cozier-Duberry’s long-term potential, even if his path to regular senior football on the south coast has so far been blocked. A loan to a club of Rangers’ stature, playing regularly in a competitive league with European football attached, would continue his physical and footballing development in exactly the manner his two previous loan spells did, while also giving Brighton the chance to monitor his progress from afar before deciding on his long-term future. It is a model that has served both parties well over the past two seasons, and there is no obvious reason why it couldn’t be extended for a third.

The broader context here is worth considering too. Rangers have been notably active in the transfer market this summer as they look to reshape their squad under McInnes, with reinforcements sought across multiple positions as the club aims to close the gap on their rivals both domestically and in Europe. Attacking width and creativity have been consistently flagged as areas requiring attention, and a move for a player of Cozier-Duberry’s mould would fit neatly into that broader strategy, even if the final structure of any deal remains to be determined. Whether that ultimately takes the shape of a permanent £5 million move, a straightforward loan, or a loan with an option to make the transfer permanent further down the line, the early indications are that Rangers are serious about adding the Brighton winger to their ranks before too long.

For Cozier-Duberry himself, the prospect of a move to Rangers would offer a clear opportunity to kick on from where his Bolton loan left off, stepping into a higher-profile environment with genuine expectations attached, both domestically and on the continental stage. Having already tasted senior football at Championship and League One level during his time away from Brighton, a switch to Scotland would represent a natural next step in his development, offering regular football at a club with real ambitions, rather than continuing to wait in the wings on the south coast for an opportunity that may never fully materialise. Given how his previous loan spells have shaped his progress so positively, there would be every reason to expect a similar trajectory should a move to Ibrox come to fruition.

As things stand, no agreement has been finalised, and Brighton’s insistence on a fee close to £5 million means there is still work to be done before any deal, in whatever form it eventually takes, can be completed. Rangers will need to weigh up the merits of committing significant funds to a player yet to prove himself above League One, against the potential upside of landing a genuinely talented young winger who could go on to become an important figure in McInnes’ side for years to come. With the transfer window still open and interest clearly established on Rangers’ part, supporters at Ibrox will be hoping the two clubs can find common ground, whether that means meeting Brighton’s valuation, negotiating a compromise loan structure, or finding some other creative solution that allows Cozier-Duberry to continue his development in Scottish football colours