Rangers have now, as expected, confirmed the signing of Japan’s Daisuke Yokota, initially broken by Fabrizio Romano. The non Japanese international previously plied his trade for Hannover in Germany’s second division, the 2. Bundesliga. His numbers for the season were not exactly super inspiring. Rangers and Daisuke Yokota is upon us.
Yokota’s numbers raise questions
9 goals and assists in 30 appearances at Germany’s second level do not scream of anything particularly impressive. They are not all that much better than Ryan Naderi’s numbers in Germany’s third division.
However, Yokota is now a Rangers man. He is Rangers’ answer to the club’s inability to sign Václav Černý for the right wing.
This lad is the replacement for Oliver Antman, which is not exactly much of an upgrade, in all honesty.
We will discuss many of the signing’s implications in due course. However, one of the big standouts for Ibrox Noise is the curiosity surrounding this arrival.
Hannover only just signed Yokota
Daisuke Yokota only just signed a permanent deal with Hannover 6 weeks ago. Early July marked the end of his loan period with Hannover.
He had signed a loan deal to remain with the Germans for that full season. He recorded those 9 goals and assists in 30 appearances before Hannover made the deal permanent.
The agreement contained an option to buy, a price of around 1.4M Euros if Hannover didn’t get promoted, 2M Euros if they did. They failed.
However, Hannover still made the deal permanent for a fee of around that 1.4M Euros around 16th of June. They then sold him to Rangers just over one month later, on 4 August, for a £2M profit at £3M total.
Ibrox Noise cannot quite fathom that one. Rangers and Daisuke Yokota is a curious story.
The transfer is highly unusual
It is very rare for a player to sign permanently for one team and leave one month later. Yokota then signed permanently for another club.
This is unprecedented. Ibrox Noise recently discussed which Rangers players appeared secure at Ibrox.
The new signings included Lawrence Shankland, Cammy Devlin and, of course, Vanja Dragojević. They seemingly represented asset players who were safe because they had only just joined.
Well, this was the case with Yokota at Hannover. Yet Rangers have signed him one month after he joined them permanently.
Blow us with a hairdryer and call us Frank, but that is a new one to us.
It is very rare for a player to sign permanently for one team and join another only one month later. We do not quite fathom how that works.
It is a new one on us. We are mildly flabbergasted as we type these words right now.
Rangers hope Yokota provides answers
As we say, we do not know an awful lot about Yokota. However, he is now our player and our permanent right winger.
We hope that he turns out to be much better than we fear. However, he did not exactly sparkle in Germany’s second division.
Therefore, who knows what Rangers have received for that £3M outlay?
He is ours now. Hopefully, he can provide some answers on the right wing. However, we are not going to hedge our bets on that one.