Rangers turn to Daniel Cousin in bid to bolster attacking options

Published on Thursday 9 February 2012 00:00

DANIEL Cousin is poised to return to Rangers until the end of the season as Ally McCoist seeks a short-term solution to his severely depleted striking options.

The Gabon international, who celebrated his 35th birthday last week while captain of his country at the Africa Cup of Nations, is a free agent and his agent Willie McKay is understood to have held further talks with Rangers yesterday over a contract offer.

Following the transfer deadline day sale of top scorer Nikica Jelavic to Everton, Rangers manager McCoist has been pursuing an attacking reinforcement to his squad. Cousin, who will not require a work permit as he also holds French nationality, has emerged as his prime target.

The player spent just over a year with the Ibrox club first time around, joining them from Lens for £750,000 in August 2007 when McCoist was assistant to Walter Smith. Cousin had a chequered spell with Rangers, his obvious talent often undermined by his suspect temperament. He scored on his debut in a 2-0 win over St Mirren and went on to net 13 goals in 44 appearances, just 27 of them in the starting line-up.

He was sent off twice, his first red card in the second leg of the 2008 Uefa Cup semi-final against Fiorentina forcing him to miss the final in Manchester through suspension. His second dismissal came in what proved to be his last game for Rangers, sent off after scoring in a 4-2 win over Celtic at Parkhead in August 2008. He was sold shortly afterwards to Hull City, then in the English Premier League, for an undisclosed fee. Cousin scored just five goals in 33 appearances for Hull before moving to Greek side Larissa in 2010. He was most recently with Gabonese club Sapins, moving back to his home country in October in order to guarantee his place in the squad for the Africa Cup of Nations finals where he helped them reach the quarter-finals.

If Cousin completes a move to Rangers, he will have to serve a one-match suspension held over from his red card against Celtic. It means if he was registered before Saturday, he would sit out the match at Dunfermline before being eligible to play against Kilmarnock at Ibrox the following weekend.

McCoist is still without injured strikers Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith, but has welcomed highly-regarded English forward Kane Hemmings back to full training this week after knee surgery. The 20-year-old had been earmarked for a first team breakthrough this season.

“It was disappointing for Kane to get injured when he did because he took part in most of the pre-season games and training before he picked it up,” said McCoist. “He’s still got a long, long way to go and he’s still potential but he’s a great lad and one that we have high hopes for so it would be great to have him back.

“He’s very positive and is a good striker of the ball with both feet. He’s quick and he’s very direct. I certainly don’t want to put any pressure on him, but he’s certainly someone that when we look to the future we think he’ll be a really big player for the club.”

McCoist has also received more positive news on Scotland Under-21 international midfielder Jamie Ness who has not played since October because of a recurrence of his long-standing chronic groin problem.

“Jamie’s had an absolutely torrid time with injuries and he’s been all over Europe and down to London to see specialists,” said McCoist. “I spoke to him this week because we’d sent him down to the Lilleshall rehabilitation centre in England. He’s been down there for a couple of weeks and he says he feels very good. He’s hopefully close to kicking a ball again, although I’m loathed to say that because the lad has had so many disappointments.”

McCoist’s first-team coach Ian Durrant, meanwhile, has accused the Rangers players of under-performing in their Scottish Cup exit at home to Dundee United last Sunday and challenged them to show greater desire to get their season back on track.

“Any team we put out on Sunday should have been good enough to beat Dundee United but we came up short in terms of the standards we want at the club,” said Durrant. “After a result like that everyone is hurting but it’s done and we have to look forward. It’s down to us, we need to put in the hard work and show what we can do.

“Our next game against Dunfermline is massive and we just have to get on with it. We have to work hard and roll the sleeves up. Every game is a challenge and I’m sure Dunfermline will look at our result against United and feel they will have a chance this weekend.

“Jim McIntyre always sets his teams up well and they are disciplined. But our objective will be to go out and try to emulate the excellent 4-0 win we got there earlier in the season. I’m sure we can go out and do the business but we know it will be a very hard game.”