Rangers must regret selling “rapid” star for just £4m

Rangers’ attacking options at Ibrox look very different now compared to just a few weeks ago.

All of last season’s top three scorers have departed this summer, with Václav Černý not returning following his loan spell, while Hamza Igamane departed for £10.4m, before Cyriel Dessers was sold for £3.5m on deadline day.

To replace them, wingers Djeidi Gassama and Oliver Antman have both arrived at Rangers while, in terms of centre-forwards, striker Bojan Miovski has come in from Girona for £2.6m, thrown in for his debut against Celtic last weekend.

Then, on deadline day, with Dessers Athens-bound, the new 49ers ownership group sanctioned one of the most expensive signings in the club’s history, but would they simply have been better off keeping a “rapid” forward?

Youssef Chermiti’s move to Rangers

Last Monday, Rangers signed Youssef Chermiti from Everton in an £8m deal that could rise to £10m with performance-based add-ons.

This makes him Rangers’ most-expensive signing of the post-liquidation era, smashing Ryan Kent’s record, behind only Tore André Flo’s £12m move to Ibrox from Chelsea in 2000.

Well, the 21-year-old’s career on Merseyside does not leap off the page as someone who warrants a record-breaking transfer fee.

Chermiti began his career at Sporting CP, scoring three goals in 22 senior appearances for the Lisbon-based club, but this was enough to convince Everton to pay £11.5m to secure his signature in August 2023.

Well, fair to say this did not prove to be a shrewd investment, given that Chermiti did not score a single goal in 24 appearances for the Toffees, albeit these totalled just 295 minutes, with 22 of them as a substitute, of which 16 were cameos of ten minutes or fewer, in his defence.

Thus, it very much remains to be seen if Chermiti will be a success in Glasgow or not, making him a very expensive gamble.

So, would Rangers simply have been better off keeping hold of their “rapid” forward, rather than selling him for £4m?

Rangers’ forgotten forward

Four years ago, Rangers signed forward Fashion Sakala on a free transfer, arriving from Oostende after his contract had expired at the Belgian club.

During two seasons in Glasgow, the Zambian international certainly made his mark, bagging 24 goals for Rangers, registering nine and then 12 during his two Premiership campaigns.

Speaking on Sportscene following Rangers’ 4-1 victory over Hibernian at Easter Road in March 2023, in which Sakala scored and bagged two assists, Steven Thomson praised his “immense” performance, while Leanne Crichton labelled him “rapid”.

Then, somewhat out of the blue, Sakala joined Saudi Pro League side Al-Fayha for a reported fee of £4m and, well, he hasn’t stopped scoring since then.

During his first season with the Orange, he bagged 19 Saudi Pro League goals, a tally only bettered by Cristiano Ronaldo and Aleksandar Mitrović, as the table below documents.

As the table documents, Sakala was outstanding during his debut season in Saudi Arabia, ranking third for goals, shots and shots on target, completing the joint-most dribbles alongside Allan Saint-Maximin.

Last season, his form did dip, bagging only eight times in the Saudi Pro League, but this still means he has accumulated 30 goals across all competitions during two seasons with Al-Fayha, registering an assist against Al-Fateh on the opening day of this season.

During the same time frame, new signing Chermiti has scored, well, zero goals, having bagged just three in his entire senior career.

Thus, all available evidence suggests that the Zambian would certainly be more of a sure-fire thing in attack, rather than the recently arrived, expensively recruited Portuguese U21 international.