Findlay Curtis finds himself at the centre of one of the more fascinating subplots of Rangers’ summer, caught between the weight of expectation that comes with a breakout loan spell and a World Cup call-up, and the reality of trying to establish himself in a Rangers side that is still being rebuilt from the ground up under Derek McInnes. As the new head coach works the phones in search of fresh attacking options before the transfer window shuts, Curtis remains one of only a small handful of recognised wide players already on the books at Ibrox, a position that brings both opportunity and considerable pressure for a twenty-year-old still finding his level at the top of Scottish football.
The context around Curtis this summer is impossible to separate from the wider story of Rangers’ transfer business. McInnes inherited a squad light in several areas, and few have been more glaring than the flanks. Oliver Antman’s exit for around four million pounds to Anderlecht stripped Rangers of a natural right-sided threat, while Nedim Bajrami’s expected move to Saudi Arabia further thinned out the club’s creative options in wide areas. That has left Curtis, alongside Djeidi Gassama and, at various points, Ross McCausland, as essentially the only recognised width available to the new head coach, a situation McInnes himself has openly acknowledged is far from ideal heading into a season in which Rangers hope to challenge on multiple fronts.
McInnes has not been shy about voicing his frustration with the current options, or his determination to fix the problem before the window closes. Speaking about the situation, the Rangers boss made clear that he simply wants a winger of the right calibre, expressing a level of flexibility about which flank a new arrival might operate on, so long as the quality is there. He specifically referenced Gassama and Curtis as players capable of good moments, while also flagging Daisuke Yokota as someone who will continue to develop, but the underlying message was unmistakable: the current group, promising as some of it may be, is not yet sufficient for the demands of a title challenge, and reinforcements are considered a priority rather than a luxury.
That has set the stage for a genuine hunt in the transfer market, with multiple names linked to Ibrox as the deadline approaches. Talks have been reported over a potential deal for Brighton’s Amario Cozier-Duberry, a twenty-one-year-old attacker who has attracted interest from several clubs amid uncertainty over his future on the south coast. Coventry City’s Jahnoah Markelo has also been strongly linked, with reports suggesting Rangers have held ongoing discussions over a move for the twenty-three-year-old, who has struggled for regular football under Frank Lampard since arriving at the CBS Arena in January. Vaclav Cerny, a player already familiar to Rangers supporters from a productive loan spell at Ibrox during the 2024-25 season in which he contributed eighteen goals and nine assists, has also emerged as an option, with his situation at Besiktas potentially complicated by the Turkish club’s pursuit of a marquee signing of their own.
Against that backdrop of active recruitment, Curtis’s own performances have taken on outsized significance. There is a natural tension at the heart of his situation: on one hand, he is precisely the kind of academy graduate every club wants to see breaking through, a player who pushed for a loan move when he felt his development demanded regular football, delivered emphatically at Kilmarnock, and was rewarded with senior international recognition at a World Cup. On the other hand, there is a recognition among analysts and supporters alike that expecting a twenty-year-old, however talented, to single-handedly solve a structural shortage of width at a club competing on multiple fronts is an unfair burden to place on his shoulders, and potentially damaging to his development if mismanaged.
That tension came into sharp focus following Rangers’ pre-season goalless draw with West Ham United. Curtis endured a quiet evening in that match, one that was seized upon by several outlets as evidence that patience, not unrealistic expectation, needs to be the watchword when it comes to his integration into the first-team picture. The broader argument advanced in the aftermath was not really about Curtis’s ability at all, but about squad construction: with Gassama’s own future reportedly uncertain amid interest from elsewhere, and no like-for-like natural replacement for Antman’s directness on the right, the view taken by much of the Rangers-focused press was that McInnes needs not one but two new wide players before the market closes, rather than leaning on Curtis and Gassama alone to carry the creative burden through a long and demanding campaign.
It is worth remembering just how quickly Curtis’s stock has risen to reach this point of scrutiny in the first place. Twelve months ago he was fighting for a foothold in the Rangers first-team picture, a promising academy product yet to fully establish himbself at senior level. A loan move to Kilmarnock in January transformed his trajectory. Five goals in fourteen appearances, including four in his final five matches of the season, helped fire the Ayrshire club to safety in the Scottish Premiership, and the form was eye-catching enough that a section of the Ibrox support later argued, only half in jest, that Rangers’ own title challenge might have looked different had Curtis remained available to them during that same stretch. The performances also earned him senior international recognition, with Steve Clarke including him in Scotland’s squad for the 2026 World Cup, a remarkable rise for a player who had been out on loan in the Championship-adjacent tiers of Scottish football only months earlier.
Returning to Ibrox for pre-season with that experience behind him, Curtis has spoken with evident confidence about wanting to nail down a regular starting role, framing his ambitions in terms of matching the impact he had at Kilmarnock rather than simply making up the numbers in a rebuilt Rangers squad. He marked his first appearance of the new campaign with a goal against Club Brugge, coolly converting a chance created by Nedim Bajrami as Rangers fought back from two goals down, a moment that will have done plenty to reinforce belief among supporters that his rise is no fluke. Since then, however, results and performances have been mixed, in keeping with a wider stuttering start to the McInnes era that has included a defeat to Hibernian at Ibrox, a Europa League qualifying exit at the hands of Jagiellonia Bialystok, and a stalemate against Dundee United on the opening day of the league season.
The debate around Curtis’s role also reflects a broader theme running through McInnes’s rebuilding project at Ibrox. The new head coach has been unusually active in the transfer market, bringing in numerous new faces across almost every area of the pitch, from goalkeeper Ivor Pandur through to defenders, midfielders and a marquee striker signing in Lawrence Shankland. Yet as pointedly noted by observers covering the club, not one of those new arrivals through the door has been a recognised winger, leaving the flanks as a conspicuous gap in an otherwise heavily reinforced squad. That imbalance has only heightened the scrutiny on Curtis and Gassama as the incumbent options, and it explains why McInnes has been so direct in stating that finding a genuine wide threat remains one of his most pressing priorities before deadline day arrives.
There is also a tactical dimension worth considering. With Shankland brought in as a focal point up front, the quality of service into him becomes critical to how effective Rangers can be in the final third, and much of that service is expected to come from wide areas. Analysts covering the club have specifically flagged that Shankland’s signing, while shrewd business in isolation, will only deliver its full value if the players around him are capable of consistently creating and delivering quality chances, underlining why solving the winger issue has become so tightly bound up with Rangers’ broader attacking ambitions for the season. Curtis, for all his promise, is still developing the physical and technical consistency to be that reliable creative outlet week in and week out at senior level, which is precisely why McInnes appears determined not to rely on him exclusively.
None of this diminishes what Curtis has already achieved or the esteem in which he is held within the game. His rise from academy prospect to Scotland international inside little more than a year is a genuinely rare achievement, and it speaks to a talent that clearly stands out even in an academy set-up that has produced its fair share of promising young players who ultimately failed to kick on at senior level. What the current moment demands of him, though, is patience allied with continued hard work, the same qualities he has spoken about publicly when discussing his development, rather than the unrealistic burden of being asked to single-handedly resolve a structural weakness that the club’s recruitment team is simultaneously working to fix through the market.
For McInnes, the calculus is reasonably straightforward, even if executing it before the transfer deadline proves more complicated. Curtis and Gassama offer genuine quality and represent a platform to build from, but neither can be expected to shoulder full responsibility for Rangers’ creativity on the flanks across a season that will include league title ambitions, cup competitions and continued European football. Bringing in at least one more proven wide player, whether that ends up being Cozier-Duberry, Markelo, Cerny or another name entirely, would allow Curtis the breathing room to continue developing at a natural pace, coming into games as a genuine attacking threat rather than as the default solution to a problem that was never really his to solve alone.
As the window edges toward its close, all eyes at Ibrox will be on whether McInnes can land the reinforcements he has been so candid about needing. For Findlay Curtis, the outcome of that pursuit may end up mattering just as much for his own development as it does for Rangers’ results, since a squad properly stocked with attacking width is one far better placed to let a talented young academy graduate grow into his role gradually, rather than thrusting the full weight of expectation onto shoulders that, for all their promise, still belong to a twenty-year-old only a matter of months removed from fighting for regular football in a loan spell at Kilmarnock. Whatever happens between now and deadline day, Curtis’s rapid rise over the past year means his path back into a strengthened Rangers side will be one of the more closely watched storylines of the season ahead.