Rangers Pursue Windass Again as Wrexham Resists

Rangers are back at a familiar door, knocking louder than ever. The target is the same. The circumstances are not.

According to talkSPORT, the Glasgow club have now formalised their interest in Wrexham forward Windass ahead of the summer window, launching a third attempt to bring him back to Ibrox. He is no stranger there: 73 appearances between 2016 and 2018 left enough of a mark for Rangers to keep circling back.

This time, there is a new driving force. Danny Rohl, now in charge at Rangers, knows exactly what he is chasing. He supervised Windass at Sheffield Wednesday, where the forward flourished under his watch, scoring 50 goals and becoming the heartbeat of Rohl’s attack. When a manager has already built an attack around a player once, it tends to sharpen the conviction to do it again.

Rangers need that kind of conviction. A third-place finish in the Scottish Premiership, behind Celtic and Hearts, has forced a hard reset in Glasgow. The forward line is under review, the recruitment department busy. Windass sits near the top of that list, but he is not the only name. The club are also in advanced talks to land Hearts striker Lawrence Shankland, a move that underlines the scale of the attacking overhaul being plotted.

Yet for all the intent coming out of Ibrox, the story looks very different in north Wales.

Windass has just been crowned Wrexham’s Player of the Season after a campaign that felt like a statement. Sixteen Championship goals – a club record at that level – and five assists in 41 league outings have made him the symbol of a project that refuses to slow down. Those numbers are not just decoration; they give Wrexham real power at the negotiating table.

The player himself has hardly sounded like a man agitating for the exit. Speaking to talkSPORT earlier this month, he nailed his colours to the Wrexham mast.

“Yeah, I signed a three-year deal in the summer. I feel like I had a really good year this year, and yeah, hopefully next year we can go one better.”

That contract, running until 2028, is the key detail. It hands the Red Dragons immense leverage and removes any urgency to sell. Wrexham already proved their resolve in January, when they flatly rejected a formal mid-season approach from Rangers. The message then was clear: not now.

Since then, Windass’s value – both on the pitch and on the balance sheet – has only grown.

The Hollywood-backed ownership at the Racecourse Ground know exactly what they have. A prolific, popular forward at his peak, tied down long term, leading a side that finished agonisingly short of the Championship play-offs. Letting him go cheaply would cut against everything they have been building.

Transfer expert Ben Jacobs has reported that, despite Rangers’ formalised interest, direct club-to-club negotiations are yet to officially begin. So, for now, this is a battle being fought in positioning and intent rather than bids and clauses.

Rangers, stung by a season that fell short domestically, are pushing towards a new attacking identity with Rohl at the centre of it. Windass, reborn and central to Wrexham’s ambitions, stands as both the ideal solution and the most complicated target.

One club trying to reclaim its place at the top. Another trying to crash the door down from below.

Somewhere between Glasgow and Wrexham, a forward with history on one side and momentum on the other will soon have a decision to make – or have it made for him by the size of the offer that finally lands on the table.