Cedric Itten is returning to Rangers with the Scottish Premiership champions exercising the re-call clause in his Greuther Furth contract, as reported by Kicker.
Talk about going from one extreme to the other.
No team in Europe’s top five leagues have accumulated fewer points than Greuther Furth so far this season. The newly-promoted outfit are all-but certain to make an immediate return to the second-tier.
In 18 games, hapless Furth have won just once, picking up a grand total of six points along the way.
Rangers, in contrast, are cruising at the top of the Scottish Premiership table, a second straight domestic title within their grasp.
And, according to reports coming out of Germany on Wednesday morning, Itten will return to Ibrox ahead of a thrilling title-fight with Old Firm rivals Celtic.
Does Cedric Itten have a future at Rangers?
Kicker claims that Rangers will exercise the re-call clause in Itten’s contract, allowing the Swiss international to cut short his time at Greuther Furth and return to his parent club with ‘immediate effect’.
The rangy targetman has fallen out of favour at the Sportpark Ronhof, watching on from the sidelines as Furth failed to break down Stuttgart last time out.
The fact that head coach Stefan Leitl opted not to introduce Itten from the bench, with Furth needing a goal, spoke volumes.
It remains to be seen, however, if Rangers plan to keep Itten around for the next few months. Or whether they plan to loan him out to another club, one who could to make better use of the former Basel man.
Itten, who joined Rangers in a £3 million deal in the summer of 2020, found game time hard to come by under Steven Gerrard.
But Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Gerrard’s replacement, has a history when it comes to getting the best out of old-school, physical centre-forwards.
Nicolai Jorgensen, a number nine in the Itten mould, guided Van Bronckhorst’s Feyenoord side to Eredivisie glory in 2017.
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