According to the Swedish media outlet, Fotboll Direkt, Rangers met with 27-year-old winger Alexander Kačaniklić in January. The winger arrived at Glasgow with a view of joining them on a free transfer. However, he went on to join Swedish side Hammarby later on.
Rangers did decent business in January as they secured the services of Steven Davis, Glen Kamara and Jermain Defoe. To go with that, they also secured the signing of Jordan Jones who is set to join Ibrox after the end of the ongoing season.
Gerrard must have seen Kačaniklić from close quarters as the winger was part of Liverpool’s youth academy from 2007-2010. He went on to join Fulham before he could make senior team appearances for the Reds. Down south, the 27-year-old played for the likes of Fulham, Watford and Burnley (on loan) before he moved to Nantes in 2016.
Kačaniklić is a 19 time Sweden international and the fact that he was available for free might have made him an exciting signing. However, in hindsight, Rangers does have two decent options on the left wing in the form of Ryan Kent and Glenn Middleton. Rangers also have Eros Grezda and Jamie Murphy who have missed the chunk of the season due to injury. Moreover, Jordan Jones is going to join the club in the summer.
Now Rangers have Kent on loan, but there have been enough indications from the player that he wants to stay and Rangers would be better of signing Kent. Kačaniklić is an exciting talent, and his experience would have come in handy. Maybe he could have had a role to play this season if he was signed in January as Grezda and Murphy have been struggling with injuries.
However, you don’t sign a player permanently to use him for six months and then just let him stay on the bench for the remainder of his contract. Therefore even though Kačaniklić was available on a free, one can understand why the Bears didn’t make a move for him in January.
Rangers would be hoping that they can negotiate a good enough deal with Liverpool for Kent and a lot could depend on the English winger in the upcoming season. If Rangers miss out on the Liverpool winger, then they might feel that they could have done with the Sweden international. However, Gerrard and Rangers don’t have a future predicting crystal ball, and they cannot know how things would pan out. So one has to say they took the right call by not bringing in another player on the wage bill who would have found it hard to find game time.
