Vaclav Cerny has undoubtedly been a ray of sunshine in a largely dark season for Rangers, but he has also managed to cast a shadow over one of the Ibrox club’s brightest prospects in the process.
Ross McCausland has seen his career stall at Ibrox following his exciting emergence under Philippe Clement last season, something few would have envisioned when he was rounding off the opening night of this season’s Europa League group stage with a goal in Rangers’ 2-0 win over Malmo in Sweden.
Between his first-team breakthrough in October 2023 and the end of last season, McCausland was a virtual ever present on matchdays for Rangers, only failing to make it off the bench, or start, on six occasions.
This season, he has featured in only 12 of Rangers’ 31 league outings so far, and has clocked up just 26 minutes of league action since the turn of the year.
In fact, he has seen only three minutes of game time under interim boss Barry Ferguson, as a late substitute in the 4-2 win at Kilmarnock in February, before dropping out of the matchday squad entirely for the last three games.
At the age of 21, McCausland can ill afford to be kept back much longer. There is an ultra-fine line between being an exciting emerging talent and a frustrated benchwarmer at the Old Firm.
Vaclav Cerny has been brilliant but his emergence has limited one starlet’s chances at Ibrox
Ross McCausland has barely been seen in first team since the arrival of loan star Cerny
McCausland was one of the stars of the show as Rangers beat Malmo last September
Northern Irish winger McCausland belts home a super goal against Malmo in Sweden
McCausland had highlighted Cerny’s form as the main reason behind his limited minutes when addressing the matter before a 90-minute run-out against Fraserburgh in the Scottish Cup in January, but he will no doubt be alarmed to have slipped further off the radar since then.
Speaking a couple of months back, the Antrim-born midfielder said: ‘I am not playing as much as I would like but Vaclav, who is playing in my position, has been incredible for us for a number of months.
‘He is very good with me; he helps me in training and stuff like that and just getting to watch him every week is amazing.
‘Some of the stuff he does is incredible and even listening to the stories of where he has been previously in his career is incredible, at international level as well.’
Whether Cerny remains at Ibrox beyond this term remains to be seen. He is on a season-long loan from Wolfsburg with a reported £5.5million option-to-buy clause which ends in May. It could be that Rangers will need a speedy resolution to their proposed US-led takeover in order to activate that agreement and stave off the threat of losing the Czech to a host of interested parties across Europe.
The long-term impact his spell at Ibrox will have had on McCausland will be borne out in time. Here’s hoping those training ground masterclasses end up outweighing any damage done by the first-team roadblock he has provided.
Alex Lowry is finally ready to play a part in his new club’s promotion bid
Alex Lowry was widely considered the next big thing at Ibrox just three years ago and it looks like he might finally be ready to make his mark at his new club down south.
Such was his slide from prominence, it went largely unnoticed that the Scotland Under-21 midfielder had departed Rangers on a permanent basis when turning up at Wycombe Wanderers in England’s League One back in January.
Lowry has had to bide his time in Buckinghamshire but he made his first league start for the club in Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at home to Shrewsbury and displayed his full repertoire of tricks at Adams Park with one eye-catching nutmeg and one smart back-heel pass before being withdrawn from the action after 74 minutes.
Alex Lowry seems ready to help Wycombe’s attempt to reach the English Championship
Former Rangers youngster Lowry made his first league start for Wycombe against Shrewsbury
Lowry looked destined for big things at Rangers before disappearing off the radar
Barely recognisable to fans north of the border thanks to his latest haircut, his shaggy locks a thing of the past, Lowry will hope to have done enough to convince manager Mike Dodds he is ready to play a part in his side’s bid for promotion to the Championship.
Wycombe sit in third place in England’s third-tier, three points behind the division’s Hollywood club Wrexham and with a game in hand. It’s shaping up as a two-way fight for the final remaining automatic promotion place given that the Tom Brady-owned Birmingham City are 11 points clear at the top and looking to shatter records on their way up.
Lowry burst to prominence when scoring for Rangers 16 minutes into his debut after coming on as a first-half substitute for Ianis Hagi in a 4-0 Scottish Cup win over Stirling Albion in 2022.
Five days later he played the full 90 minutes in a 1-0 Premiership win over Livingston and supporters’ forums and messageboards were ablaze with praise for the wild-haired skinny kid with the world at his talented feet.
He had a front-row seat from the bench as Rangers marched all the way to the Europa League final in Seville and caught the eye again in further appearances in the Scottish Cup and post-split fixtures, in particular with his goal and assist in a final-day 3-1 defeat of Hearts at Tynecastle.
But he failed to kick on from that promising debut season and has had to overcome knee and back injuries, the latter during a largely underwhelming loan spell at Hearts last season.
Anyone who witnessed his youthful exuberance and clear talent on those first steps in the professional game will wish him nothing but the best as his unfashionable new club attempt to rip up the script in the battle with Wrexham.
Patrick Stewart will be bracing himself for a busy night at Edmiston House
Rangers chief executive Patrick Stewart will have his work cut out when he takes to the stage for a fans forum at Edmiston House on April 23.
The quarterly event was introduced by his predecessor, James Bisgrove, in an effort to facilitate ‘meaningful dialogue’ with supporters, but this will be the first since Stewart took over in December.
Patrick Stewart will have many questions to answer at fans forum taking place this month
The American takeover of Rangers will be one of the major topics on the agenda
In an email to fans, Rangers said: ‘He will be joined on the evening by members of the club’s senior management team, who will provide updates across a range of key areas and take questions from supporters on a variety of topics.’
With new owners waiting in the wings and uncertainty over the manager’s position, never mind the future of most of the playing squad, let’s just say the 400 in attendance will not be short of a query or two. Stewart will be bracing himself.
The Rangers fringe men who could yet earn club a decent fee
As Rangers prepare for a new era, under fresh ownership with a firm grasp of the game’s commercial realities, one of the priorities is to make a better job of buying and selling players.
That means developing their biggest assets and moving them on at the most profitable time, a simple process they have contrived to make an almighty mess of in the past.
In the short term, it will also mean getting as much money as possible for fringe players who are so far from the first-team squad that they have been shipped out on loan.
Four of the many who are away from Ibrox on temporary deals have the potential to earn the club a decent fee before their contract runs out.
Kieran Dowell, who has a year left on his Rangers deal, has done sufficiently well with Birmingham City to persuade their manager, Chris Davies, that a permanent move should be agreed in the summer. ‘It’s definitely something we will have to look into,’ said Davies.
Kieron Dowell has done so well at Birmingham that club may be looking to keep him longer
Ben Davies is another loan Rangers who could remain with Birmingham after impressive stint
Jose Cifuentes initially failed to impress at Aris Thessaloniki but things are looking up for him
Rabbi Matondo may have to show drastic improvement in form if Hannover 96 are to keep him
Ben Davies, who also has a year left at Rangers, is another whose season-long stint at Birmingham could become permanent. ‘I’m really enjoying it here so if the opportunity arose I’d consider it seriously,’ said the defender.
Jose Cifuentes was shaping up to be a little trickier, not least because the Ecuadorian midfielder struggled to establish himself with Aris Thessaloniki and was reported to have been fined after turning up late for training.
The Greek side were expected to send Cifuentes back at the end of the season, but his form has taken a turn for the better recently and the suggestion is that they will look at a permanent deal after all.
The catch is that they are not keen to stump up the fee agreed in the buyout option. Cifuentes, a £1.2m signing from Los Angeles FC when Michael Beale was Rangers’ manager, still has two years of his contract to run.
The biggest challenge will be recouping the sizeable sum paid to Schalke for Rabbi Matondo in 2022. The Wales winger’s loan to Hannover 96 in January included a £1m buyout option that depended on their elevation to Germany’s top flight.
Not only are they sixth in the second tier, and in need of a late push for promotion, Matondo has failed to make an impression. One local report suggested that Hannover’s sporting director, Marcus Mann, will need to see a drastic improvement in the player if there is to be any prospect of a purchase.
Ibrox looks like the perfect venue for successful women’s side
Never mind Patrick Stewart’s promise to take take Rangers’ women to another level; Jo Potter’s side seem to be doing a pretty good job of that themselves.
The club’s chief executive was at Ibrox on Sunday to see them beat Hearts 4-0 and remain just two points behind leaders Hibs in the SWPL table. Rio Hardy and Brogan Hay scored two goals each.
Potter later revealed that Stewart, who had also been at their Sky Sports Cup final triumph the week before, had spoken with her at full-time about his plans for the future.
Jo Potter’s Rangers team are going from strength to strength in all competitions this season
Patrick Stewart has indicated that more of the women’s games could be played at Ibrox
The Rangers team celebrate Brogan Hay’s first goal in a 4-0 victory over Hearts
They include offering greater support to the women’s team and potentially staging more of their games at Ibrox. As it stands, most of their home matches are at Broadwood.
That was encouraging news for Potter, who is not exactly resting on her laurels either. The head coach has guided Rangers to 11 unbeaten matches since the turn of the year and fuelled talk of a potential treble.
With one trophy already in the bag, they have a Scottish Cup semi-final against Aberdeen to look forward to, together with a title run-in that they are well-equipped for. In their last three games, they have scored four against Hearts, five against Hibs and eight against Motherwell, recording three clean sheets in the process.
Potter agrees that it is the form of champions, but it will have to be maintained if they are to come out on top at the end of the season. Their next game is at home to Celtic a week on Sunday.
‘We are not champions right now,’ said Potter. ‘We are not even (defending) champions. We have won the Sky Sports Cup. We are in these competitions and we have ambitions and aims but we have got to produce these kind of performances now week in, week out. You take your foot off ever so slightly, and good teams around you will punish you.’
