What a difference a few months make. At the tail end of 2025, how many Rangers fans would have foreseen that, come the summer, they would be itching to keep Youssef Chermiti at Ibrox rather than cut their losses?
When he trudged off the pitch following a 3-0 defeat against Brann, carrying that heavy £8 million burden on his back with a club in chaos swirling around every performance, subsequent dominant Old Firm showings and moments of genuine brilliance felt a world away.
But then, as there always is, there was another side. Here was a 21-year-old, perhaps too early, asked to be a leader in a squad now intentionally rebuilding that senior aspect of the dressing room. Here was a player who had not played all that much football in the past two seasons and arrived with more than a few doubts surrounding him.
The former Everton striker did not end the season flawlessly – there is still a belief internally that if you get Chermiti as engaged every week as he was during Old Firms, his ceiling could stretch much higher – but 15 goals, a hat-trick against Hearts, two doubles against Celtic and a much-improved all-round game have attracted plenty of interest. As reported last week, French club Lyon enquired about Chermiti early in the window, but the clubs’ valuations of the player were so far apart that that is where the conversation remained.
Sitting at the club’s pre-season training base in Spain, out of the glare of cameras in between a double-session day, the Portuguese forward is visibly relaxed and engaging company. His attention is not on the next move but on next season, he insists.
“I'm very happy here,” Chermiti says when asked about near-constant speculation from abroad linking him with moves to a top-five division.
“I like Glasgow, I like the club and everyone likes me as well. I think everyone is just trying to help me with my development. It is not a distraction for me, to be honest I don't hear anything. I don’t hear any noise from outside the club. I leave that with my agent and my family.
“I'm just focused on this season and on Rangers. I feel very good in the city. Even my family is happy. 100 per cent, there is more to come from me. I think that's the target.
“I'm trying to get better every day. I think my target is, as I said in a few interviews before, I want to get into the national team [too]. That's my dream.”
When Chermiti arrived at the club last summer, there was a conversation with the club hierarchy about the pressures of the No.9 shirt. Aware that wearing it could add extra glare to a young player who already needed some time to settle and learn the ropes, it was not thrust upon him. But after sleeping on the choice, the young striker was sure that the only way to deal with pressure at a club like Rangers is by running after it.
“I think that showed my mentality. Some people told me not to wear the No.9 because there is a lot of pressure. But I said if you don't live with pressure, you don't get better. I think that showed a little bit of my character,” he adds.
“After the start of the season, I think I had a really good end to the season. The first few months were a bit difficult because I was not playing. When I was at Everton, I was injured as well.
“I had some time to settle down [after arriving]. When I was really focused on everything, with no noise or anything like that, I just had to put my work in on the pitch. I think I showed my quality and there’s more to come. I think now we are just trying to build everything again and go for the league again.
“Of course, I am excited. As I said, we're trying to build up everything we couldn't do last season. We are so excited for the next season and we're going for the title.”
If one moment captures that resurgence in the striker’s season, it was a genuinely astonishing bicycle kick against Celtic, worthy – like his second on the day – of winning any one of these fixtures. A 2-0 lead was pegged back in what materialised into a damaging 2-2 draw for Danny Rohl.
🤯 “That is 𝗮𝗯𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲!”
Youssef Chermiti gives Rangers the lead against Celtic in SPECTACULAR style ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/l67fM0OOO6— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) March 1, 2026
“Since I was young, I've been trying to score goals like that. I scored once, a head kick when I was young,” Chermiti says, also making note of a Cristiano Ronaldo overhead kick against Juventus during his Real Madrid pomp that holds clear similarities. Like just about every player to come out of Portugal in the past 20 years, Cristiano is spoken of with reverence, and Chermiti – namechecked on more than one occasion by former national team boss Roberto Martínez – is not thought to be far away from reaching a senior squad.
Has he ever scored another goal like it? There is, in fact, a reference: an overhead kick for Sporting against Benfica in the academy. “I was 14 and it was in the derby as well,” Chermiti smiles.
Danny Rohl, it should be noted, deserves credit for his development of Chermiti and Manny Fernandez, both still viewed as expensive mistakes more than wise investments at the time pf his arrival. Now, the forward will work with Derek McInnes and, given his preference for playing in a two-striker system, he is excited to get going.
He adds: “I think the manager can help us all bring success. Everyone knows what the manager did last season. We know him as a player as well. He's been very good for us. He's been helping us as well. We're building a good relationship.”
Not least because, like his fellow countryman Claudio Braga, there is a belief that new arrival Lawrence Shankland may just be able to bring the best out of a forward who admits he prefers playing with a partner. Perhaps Shankland’s ability to link the game will allow Chermiti the support and structure to reach new levels.
“I think everyone knows [Shankland’s] quality. He's a good finisher. I think we can help each other. I think we want to help each other. We have me, we have Bojan [Miovski], we have Ryan [Naderi] and now we have Lawrence.
“We’re a strong, strong unit and I think between us four, we have different skills. I think between the four of us, we can bring a lot of good things for the team. Personally, I prefer to play with two strikers. I feel more confident on the pitch. I think it's a good way to help us to try to get the title.”
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For now, the work that will go into a title charge is just beginning. McInnes’ squad still needs surgery and a new spine of the team will take time to settle. There is an authenticity to Chermiti’s designs on success, though, a feeling that Ibrox is not just a stepping stone to higher things, but where he wants to be here and now.
“I think the way it ended, that hurt us a lot last season,” he admits.
“But I also think that just gave us more strength for this season with the new signings as well. We’ve had a really good beginning to the transfer window and I hope they can help us to get the title. I think we can build a really good team for this season and we will go for it.”
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