Forgotten Rangers star 'ready to consider' January exit as transfer threatened unless key condition met
Star has been left out in the cold despite promising end to last season
Rangers midfielder Tochi Chukwuani is reportedly ‘ready to consider’ leaving the club in the January transfer window - unless he’s given more minutes on the pitch.
The 23-year old joined the club in January from Austrian outfit Strum Graz and was a mainstay in the middle of the park under Danny Rohl. However, this season, he’s found himself sliding down the selection pecking order, with new boss Derek McInnes often preferring Dan Neil and Nico Raskin in midfield. Chukwuani has made eight appearances this season for the Light Blues but is yet to start in a league match.
Not many would have foresaw the drop off from the Dane, who notched 18 appearances in the last campaign despite joining halfway through. Chukwuani’s £4.3m price tag indicated he was going to be a player for the future, however his lack of minutes have becoming worrying. As well as Neil and Raskin, Rangers further strengthened the midfield in the summer through Vanja Dragojevic and Cammy Devlin.
Chukwuani ‘ready to consider’ Rangers exit
According to Football Insider: “Rangers midfielder Tochi Chukwuani is ready to consider a move away from Ibrox in January if his game time doesn’t improve. The 23-year-old is not yet angling for a move away ahead of the winter window, but is prepared to take matters into his own hands if he continues to be left out in the cold.”
The same report suggests that Rangers’ other midfield options are ahead of Chukwuani in the selection pecking order - and with no European football there is less need for squad rotation. To put in perspective, McInnes has made just one change to the starting XI in their last four matches.
Despite this, neither of their midfield pairing covered themselves in glory on Saturday night for Dundee’s equaliser at Dens Park. The hosts salvaged a point as Raskin gave Neil the ball in a dangerous area before the ex-Sunderland man played a short back pass straight into the path of Dundee’s Callum Jones, who equalised.
What did McInnes say about the midfield error at Dens Park?
The pair had been a driving force in Rangers’ seven-match win streak, however McInnes described the mistake on Tayside as a ‘balloon-popping’ moment. After the match, he said: “It was almost like a balloon popping when we made a mistake, which can happen.
“We never really got back to that same level. Although we did have enough balls in their box to score. We should be scoring. With some of the stats and some of the touches we had, we should be scoring more than two goals a night. So a combination of that and us also coming away from home, should they need to score three goals to win a game of football.”
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