When Rangers recalled Cedric Itten from his loan spell in the Bundesliga, it looked as though he was going to be given a real chance to resurrect his career at Ibrox, on paper, he was the perfect fit for a system that used wingers to supply a central striker.
We all know how it turned out, a mixture of form and fitness saw him reduced to barely being able to make the bench most weeks, ironically, he looked quite sharp when he scored in his last appearance against Hearts at Tynecastle – a case of too little, too late.
A £1.5million transfer to Young Boys means that we will be making most of the money that we spent on the Switzerland striker back, with former Gers gaffer, Alex McLeish, believing that we may already have a replacement lined up, as told to Football Insider:
“Cedric, for a tall guy, you thought he was going to bring a lot of heading ability.
“It wasn’t really the strongest part of his game. I don’t think they really exploited what was the strongest part of his game or he certainly never showed that.
“It wasn’t as if he was brilliant in the air. Many times the ball came up to him and we saw him not jumping before defenders. He was definitely not the kind of top striker you’d have thought Rangers would be wanting to bring in.
“I don’t think there’s a doubt that Giovanni will have his little black book out now.
“He’ll be looking at players he very much thinks can add to Rangers levels they showed last season. They were really exceptional.
“I would say it’s now time for the black book of Van Bronckhorst. I’m sure that he’s got plenty of players lined up in terms of every different position.”
There is absolutely no doubt that we need a new striker, Alfredo Morelos can’t do it on his own and Kemar Roofe – despite his quality – has yet to prove that he can be available more often than he isn’t.
So far, we’ve only been linked with Mateo Cassierra in terms of out and out forwards but at £8.5m we would have to be having a serious change of plan to justify the fee being demanded by Sochi but there has been encouragement from both his agent and the player himself.