Leicester’s first offer of £6.5m for Jelavic rejected by Rangers

RANGERS fans face an anxious wait today to see if the club can hold on to striker Nikica Jelavic before the transfer window closes, after a £6.5 million bid from Leicester City was rejected last night.

The npower Championship side, managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson, made their move for the Croatian after previous target Shane Long joined West Brom from Reading. But, although the bid was thrown out by Rangers, there remains time for Leicester to return with an improved offer, with the English transfer window closing at 11pm tonight. If former England manager Eriksson convinces his club to return with an offer that Rangers owner Craig Whyte could not refuse – Jelavic cost Rangers £4m from Rapid Vienna last August – Ibrox manager Ally McCoist would be left with little time to replace one of his key men.

His options up front would be Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith, with back-up from John Fleck and the rarely seen David Healy. The 26-year-old has scored three goals in seven games this season, after totting up an impressive tally of 19 goals in his first season, despite that campaign being blighted by injury when he was sidelined for almost four months with ankle ligament damage. Selling Jelavic would be a huge gamble for Whyte, but the failure to reach the group stages of the Champions League, followed by early elimination from the Europa League, has cut off what was hoped would be a significant source of revenue. Jelavic was critical after the team were knocked out of the Europa League by Slovenian side Maribor last week. “This is not Rangers,” he said. “It’s not the team I know or remember from last season. I don’t know what happened against Maribor. We need to start playing our game.”

As well as missing out on Long, Leicester have also failed with a bid for Bristol City striker Nicky Maynard. The Foxes need to strengthen their options in attack today, after cancelling the contract of Leon Crncic and indicating that another striker, Martyn Waghorn, is not part of Eriksson’s future plans. The English club have spent freely during the summer, bringing in several new players, including Matt Mills, Kasper Schmeichel and Gelson Fernandes. It saw them installed by bookmakers as hot favourites to win the Championship this season, although they have had a lukewarm start, taking seven points from their opening five league fuxtures.

Eriksson is under pressure to deliver success but, while his initial move for Jelavic has been rebuffed, he may be encouraged by McCoist’s admission in the wake of his side’s Europa League exit that he could not guarantee that players would not leave Ibrox in the final week of the transfer window.

After the loss to Maribor, the Rangers manager conceded: “There is no manager who can be given that guarantee [of not having to sell]. I have certainly not been told we have to sell people. But you have to be honest and look at things.”

Rangers also rejected an offer of £400,000 from Bolton for youngster Gregg Wylde earlier this month. Meanwhile Vladimir Weiss, who was on loan to Rangers last season, has joined Espanyol on a season-long loan from Manchester City.