Rangers can't afford Vaclav Cerny as Philippe Clement prays he's not latest loan star that got away

Philippe Clement hopes Rangers will not be left looking at Vaclav Cerny as their latest loan star who got away.

The Czech ace has been in impressive form for the Ibrox outfit since joining on a season-long stint from parent club Wolfsburg. The winger fired his ninth goal of the campaign in Wednesday’s 6-0 hammering of Kilmarnock and sits top of the Premiership scoring charts alongside team-mate Cyriel Dessers and Celtic skipper Callum McGregor.

But as things stand, £6.5million-rated Cerny will be heading back to Germany next summer after Gers chiefs failed to negotiate an option to buy the 27-year-old when his loan spell ends. And Clement worries that will leave him in a similar position to last summer, when he was forced to wave goodbye to 16-goal frontman Abdallah Sima after the Light Blues were unable to meet Brighton’s pricey valuation of the Senegalese flyer. Sima is now ripping it up on loan in France, where his goals have helped put Champions League debutants Brest in contention for the knockout stages.

Clement said: “Yeah, I had discussions with the board in June about the wages, which had to be lowered a lot. One of the points that we talked about is having players on loan, it's something we need for the moment.

“We don't have the money to buy Vaclav for the moment now and we didn't have the money to buy Abdallah at that moment. But we need to to try every year to have one player less on loan and one player more that's an asset for the club because we're going to have a similar situation at the end of the season in that way.

“Abdallah wanted to stay here, loved to stay here. But of course other teams are also interested and in one moment he chooses also for his career, for his wages, for everything. So of course