Rangers should look at Leeds United’s Marcus Antonsson

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Ibrox side Glasgow Rangers need a striker, and the out-of-favour Leeds United man probably needs a club.

Leeds United kick off their Championship season in nine days and it remains to be seen if Marcus Antonsson will be at the club by then. The Swedish striker was linked with a return to Sweden last week after a testing first season at Elland Road, scoring once in 16 league appearances.

The 26-year-old hardly put paid to such rumours by saying to Fotboll Skanelen: “Leeds is a fantastic club in every way but playing time is the most important thing and one has to think about itself as well. I feel I have to play football.”

With that in mind, Antonsson, who joined from Kalmar last summer, could well leave Yorkshire this summer and Rangers should consider bringing him to Glasgow.

It’s easy to criticise his signing but the fact is that he did arrive at United as a striker who scored 22 goals in 41 league matches for Kalmar and such a decent goalscoring record should encourage Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha to make a move.

Of course, his goal return meant little in the Championship, but that is arguably a tougher division than the Scottish Premiership – evident by the fact Moussa Dembele scored twice as many goals for Celtic last term as he did during his last season for Fulham – and there is little to suggest he would face the same problems North of the border.

Do Rangers need a striker? If Caixinha’s post-match comments in the last three games are anything to go by, yes.

The Portuguese manager berated missed opportunities against Watford, Marseille and St Johnstone over the past week and it is obvious he knows that the Gers could probably do with another number nine, to compete with Kenny Miller, Martyn Waghorn and Alfredo Morelos – the latter two being unproven in the top flight.

Rangers fans might baulk at the Leeds striker, but the truth is that having a superb goalscoring record in Sweden is more impressive than having one in Iceland’s top flight, and yet Morelos’s arrival was received very positively.

He wouldn’t be expensive and United wouldn’t expect to recoup the £1.2 million paid for him. Antonsson, liked by many Leeds fans, obviously knows the way to goal and Caixinha should offer him the chance to rebuild his career in British football at Ibrox.