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Danny Rohl refused to rule out further Rangers signings before the end of the January transfer window – but do their title hopes hinge on recruiting a new striker?

Following a frustrating goalless draw at Hibernian on Sunday, Motherwell midfielder Andy Halliday questioned whether his former club have the attacking output to win the title.

The stalemate in Leith ended the Ibrox side’s six-game winning run in the Scottish Premiership, meaning they ended the weekend six points adrift of league leaders Hearts.

When asked what the conclusion to the window – which closes at 23:00 GMT on Monday – may bring, Rohl revealed there could be ins and outs but said he would also be content with his current group.

“I trust the club will make the right decisions,” the Rangers boss told BBC Scotland. “We’ll see what happens in the next 24 hours, there could be ins and outs, this is normal.

Former Rangers midfielder Halliday is far from convinced, though.

“From open play, Rangers lack so much creativity and the penalty-box striker to get the goals required to win the league,” the 34-year-old said on Sportsound.

The Govan side registered just two shots on target at Easter Road – one in each half – and accumulated an expected goals (xG) rating of just 0.53 from 11 efforts.

Meanwhile, Rangers’ starting front three – Youssef Chermiti, Andreas Skov Olsen and Djeidi Gassama – managed a combined six touches in the opposition box.

Hibs created the better chances – evidenced by their 1.88 xG – and Rohl recognised his team were not deserving of victory, but insisted he would not “make everything very dark” after failing to win for just a fourth time in 16 league fixtures.

“We had some good phases in the game where we couldn’t score,” the German said. “It wasn’t about the last pass [or] being clinical, first half we had two less players into the box – this is a part we can improve.

Rohl has merited the praise that has come his way since picking up the pieces at Ibrox and dragging the team into a title race following Russell Martin’s dire tenure.

Rangers have not conceded in their past four league matches, adding to a total of 10 clean sheets in 16 games under Rohl.

There has also been an impressive return from set-piece goals, but evidently concerns remain regarding their ability to create from open play.

“In that final third, there are still huge questions for Rangers,” former Premiership midfielder Scott Allan said on Sportsound.

“Mikey Moore was the difference in the second half [on Sunday], playing in the pockets and he can see a pass. But other than him, Rangers were devoid of any real ideas and quality in the final third.”

Across the 2025-26 Premiership season so far, Rangers are fifth for open-play goals and fourth for open-play xG.

But how does that shift since Rohl’s appointment? For open-play goals, they nudge up to fourth and they climb to second for open-play xG.

Rangers’ top scorer in the league is right-back James Tavernier with six – three of those have come from the spot. Centre-back Emmanuel Fernandez is next with four.

Strikers Chermiti, Danilo and Bojan Miovski have three between them.

The Ibrox side have been heavily linked with bringing in another forward, with Hansa Rostock’s Ryan Naderi and Cameron Archer of Southampton linked.

Any new striker will need service for them to succeed, though. The hope for Rohl is Skov Olsen, who was viewed as a statement signing, can provide that.

The Dane scored 49 goals and assisted 30 at Club Brugge but suffered a dip in form at Wolfsburg, where he left on loan to join Rangers.

He failed to impose himself on the game at Easter Road as he continues to work his way to full match fitness, but Rohl said he is “very positive” about the winger.

With transfer deadline day approaching, how does the January window compare to previous years and what could still happen before Monday’s 19:00 GMT deadline?

The current Premier League spending sits at £325m, down from £421m in 2025 – but there’s a good chance we might reach a similar final total with a busy deadline day expected.

January 2026 has seen a somewhat middling window. Of the traditional big six, only Manchester City and Tottenham have been active, spending £84m and £48m respectively.

Indeed, Antoine Semenyo’s £63m switch from Bournemouth to City looks set to be comfortably the biggest deal done in the window.

City will be the biggest spenders for the second-consecutive January, having spent £188m 12 months ago on reinforcements that have had varying degrees of impact on the first-team. The £84m outlay on Semenyo and Marc Guehi edges them close to an eye-watering £450m spend in the last 12-month period.

Tottenham (£47.8m) and West Ham (£47m) follow next, the latter adding two centre-forwards to their ranks as they look to move out of the relegation zone.

Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea have so far chosen to sit this one out, and that’s been a prevailing theme for that quartet in January of late; Arsenal and Liverpool have not signed anyone at all in winter for three seasons now, while United’s capture of Patrick Dorgu (£27m in 2025) has been their only business over that same period.

The current January spend is way down from the January record set in 2023, when £815m was spent – largely powered by Chelsea, who accounted for £280m of this alone.

The number of deals is slightly down year-on-year, but the cost of the deals is up, from £4.7m last year to £5.3m this year. That was also reflected in the summer, when the average price per deal in the Premier League sat at £9m – comfortably the highest on record.

If summer and winter spending and combined, we’re just short of £3.45bn – that’s around £725m more than the previous record for a single season set in 2022/23. Make no mistake, the spending power across the breadth of the division has never been stronger.

In Europe, this window has broadly followed the pattern of last January. La Liga simply is not interested in this window; just £21.8m was spent by Spanish top-flight clubs in 2025, and this window is tracking to be even less.

The Bundesliga (£67m) and Ligue 1 (45.2m) have also seen relatively modest amounts spent. As it was in 2025, it is Italy’s Serie A most willing to invest. Their spend is touching £150m, but the cold fact for Europe’s other ‘big five’ is that the Premier League will spend more than the four of them combined, just as they had in the summer. A total of 10 Premier League teams have broken their transfer record in the 25/26 season, while another eight have recorded their record sale.

And for these leagues, player acquisition from them to the Premier League frees up the money to allow them to invest. While the English top flight’s net spend for the summer was minus £1.3bn, the other four banked a £360m profit. The current European football trading model at the very top requires Premier League clubs to accept significant losses in order for their clubs to go into the market at anywhere near the same level.

Will this change any time soon?

The most likely threat to this status quo comes from Saudi Arabia. The Pro League has remained largely quiet in this window and indeed for the past 18 months, as they assess the lessons they learned from their debut market splurge in 2023. Too many big names chose to ride out their days collecting big money despite being long past their best, and the Saudi project has learned from this.

Wolves have accepted an offer for striker Jorgen Strand Larsen, which is expected to accelerate Jean-Philippe Mateta’s move to AC Milan.

Mateta’s potential transfer looks likely to be the main one to keep an eye on.

The Crystal Palace striker has also been linked with Italian giants Juventus and Premier League sides Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. Palace value Mateta at around £40m.

A proposed move to Tottenham for Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson did not come off recently, but a transfer away from Anfield could still happen.

Joshua Zirkzee is yet to feature for Manchester United under interim head coach Michael Carrick, meaning he could be on his way.

Manchester City have been busy with incomings and outgoings, signing Semenyo and Marc Guehi and selling forward Oscar Bobb to Fulham for £27m.

Crystal Palace signed forward Brennan Johnson from Tottenham for £35m, while Spurs spent £34m to sign attacking midfielder Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid.

West Ham have spent almost £50m in this window.

The transfer window for the Premier League closes at 19:00 GMT on Monday, 2 February.

If clubs submit a deal sheet before that time then they will get an additional two hours – until 21:00 GMT – to complete all the necessary paperwork.

The transfer window for most major European leagues also closes on 2 February, with below being the main ones to be aware of:

19:00 GMT:

Italy

Germany

France

22:59 GMT:

There will be a live transfer page running throughout the day on the BBC Sport website where all the news of the moves will break.

Between 16:00 and 18:45 GMT, Steph Houghton joins Ben Croucher and Emma Middleton to discuss the latest on deadline day on the BBC Sport website and iPlayer.

When the video assistant referee (VAR) stats are released at the end of the season, there will be a long list of correct interventions.

There will probably be three on the list from Sunday’s Premier League matches.

Yet sometimes correct decisions come at a cost.

“The problem is what it is doing to the games, to the spectacle, with the amount of time it takes to get there,” MOTD pundit Danny Murphy said of the VAR decisions.

“Do you want more right decisions or do you want a more free-flowing football experience that is genuine and spur of the moment?

“I get VAR is here to stay and we are trying our best to embrace it but the time it is taking sometimes is too much.

“For the good of the game, you’d have VAR gone – most people would say that I think.”

It took more than two minutes to cancel Manchester United’s penalty against Fulham and change it to a free-kick.

Almost three and a half minutes were lost when the VAR ruled out a Fulham goal for offside.

Aston Villa’s disallowed goal against Brentford only came about after a four-minute stoppage.

In contrast, Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola was left fuming after VAR quickly agreed with the onfield decision that Dominic Solanke hadn’t fouled Marc Guehi for Tottenham’s opener in the 2-2 draw.

Long delays, mixed messages and irate managers have been the story of the day. As has been the case on too many occasions.

Manchester United’s cancelled penalty was logical once you know what happened.

The problem is, as is usually the way with VAR, everyone was kept in the dark and left guessing.

Including, it seems, Fulham boss Marco Silva.

Logic often ends up being replaced by claims of some kind of conspiracy.

Referee John Brooks gave a penalty for Jorge Cuenca pulling Matheus Cunha’s shirt, believing it had continued into the box.

Yet most people watching the game would have assumed it was given for Cuenca’s tackle on Cunha.

It seems the fourth official, Darren England, thought this too. Silva said he was told by England the referee would be coming to the pitchside monitor.

But the penalty was given for holding, and that was outside the box.

The referee did not need to go to the monitor. The penalty becomes a free-kick. And the free-kick cannot be reviewed.

When Brooks announced the decision to the crowd, it lacked context. It did not bring the clarity that he had given the penalty for the holding.

Silva remains totally unconvinced.

“The game started with a terrible decision from John Brooks, a completely bad decision from him,” Silva told BBC Sport after the game.

“It was a clear simple tackle on the ball. I understand VAR are now saying different things but the penalty was given for the tackle. Nobody is going to give a penalty for a pull.”

He added on Sky Sports: “Because the decision was so bad, they found a different foul.”

If we could hear the VAR audio during the game there would not be this confusion. But Fifa is against this happening any time soon.

This decision was going to get changed regardless, because Cuenca clearly won the ball. The VAR had to check that too, in case that was a penalty.

You can understand why Fulham feel aggrieved with VAR this season.

Ever since they had a Josh King goal wrongly disallowed through a VAR review at Chelsea in August, the world has been against them.

They have been involved in more VAR decisions than any other club. And of the 12 interventions, eight have gone against them.

Fulham have had five goals disallowed through a VAR review. The highest for any other club is two.

But the decision at Chelsea is the only one logged as a mistake by the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents Panel.

On Sunday, Cuenca’s 65th minute goal was ruled out for offside against Samuel Chukwueze.

Again, the correct decision but it took way too long. More than three minutes for a factual offside is unnecessary, especially with semi-automated technology.

The VAR spent time working out a possible offside offence against Cuenca, but Chukwueze looked more obviously offside.

Chukwueze was just ahead of the defence when Raul Jimenez struck his free-kick. That the ball smashed into the Manchester United wall did not reset the offside phase against Chukwueze.

It was a tight one and plenty of Fulham fans would ask what happened to the tolerance level. A Florian Wirtz goal for Liverpool was allowed on VAR review against them last month because of this.

Since the Wirtz decision, Fulham have a had three goals marginally offside. It seems like they never get the benefit of this tolerance level.

There will always be the point where a player is offside beyond it.

Tammy Abraham thought he had a dream goal on his second debut for Aston Villa.

Four minutes after he had celebrated the goal it was ruled out on a VAR review.

Aston Villa have good reason to feel aggrieved.

Nineteen seconds is a long time to go back to disallow a goal in the Premier League. The ball was right by the corner flag at the opposite end of the pitch.

A very long time in fact – the furthest the VAR has ever gone back in the attacking phase.

Then there is the nature of the review itself. Did the VAR, Paul Tierney, really have conclusive proof the whole of the ball was over the line?

Cast your mind back to November 2023.

Newcastle United scored a goal against Arsenal and after a lengthy VAR review it was allowed to stand.

The VAR felt he did not have proof that Joe Willock had failed to keep the ball in play. Part of the problem was there was no camera directly on the line to show the curvature of the ball relative to the line.

Can we say Leon Bailey definitely failed to keep the ball in?

It looks like the ball was probably out. But probably shouldn’t be enough for the VAR to rule out the goal.

“I have to accept the referee’s decision but I think it isn’t fair,” Aston Villa boss Unai Emery said after the game.

You can see his point. Even Brentford boss Keith Andrews said he had not “seen conclusive proof”.

But Andrews added: “It’s the million dollar question [if fair to call it back so far] but it’s the same phase of play. I’m comfortable.”

Danny Murphy felt the decision emphasised his point on how much VAR takes away from the game.

“If you are Aston Villa, and that happened to you the other way round, then you would be saying the ball had gone out of play,” Murphy said.

“But it goes back to what I originally said. Is it about getting the right decisions, or is it about the good of the game?”

Correct decision? Probably.

Harry; Manchester: If VAR exists to keep the game straight, I am in serious doubt that it is solving more issues than it’s causing. I ask genuinely, had VAR not pointed out some kind of problem, would any of us have had a problem with Fulham’s goal?

Liam: Genuine question, when and how does this VAR issue improve? Surely no one in charge can be watching this and saying “Yep, this is all working as intended”.

Taylor, Shropshire: Please please please, for the good of football, get rid of VAR. It is absolutely killing the flow and the enjoyment of the game for all fans, not least the ones who pay an absolute fortune for tickets

Adam, London: Fulham getting our usual dose of rubbish from VAR today, I’m amazed Silva doesn’t get sent off every week

Dave, Liverpool: See VAR taking ages, killing the game.

Vinnie: VAR doing its job. As an Arsenal fan, these margins are vital, so important to get it right.

Paul, Manchester: They are actively looking to disallow goals by VAR now. That (Villa Goal) is so far from what it was brought in to do. Scrap it right now.

Celtic interim manager Martin O’Neill revealed two prospective signings are having medicals and hinted the club could do further deals after his team beat Falkirk 2-0 to move above Rangers into second place in the Scottish Premiership.

The Parkhead outfit have signed Julian Araujo and Tomas Cvancara – both on loan – in the winter transfer window from Bournemouth and Borussia Monchengladbach, respectively.

Supporters have consistently criticised a perceived lack of investment this season, while last summer’s recruitment has been hit and miss at best.

Benjamin Nygren is Celtic’s leading scorer – the Swede took his tally to 15 with the second against Falkirk – but Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Sebastian Tounekti have flattered to deceive.

Free signing Kelechi Iheanacho has struggled for both form and fitness, and although Kieran Tierney has impressed at points, he is not the same player that left for Arsenal in 2019.

The victory over Falkirk took O’Neill’s side back into second after Rangers were held by Hibernian, but they still trail leaders Hearts by six points.

“We are [close to transfers],” O’Neill said. “We’ve some medicals here at this minute and fingers crossed the players come through.

O’Neill was asked specifically about Lorient’s Norwegian forward Joel Mvuka and Freiburg’s Austria striker Junior Adamu, who have been linked with moves to Celtic.

The former Leicester City and Aston Villa manager would not confirm those were the two players undergoing medicals, but told BBC Scotland: “You would be pretty well close.”

With the transfer window closing on Monday night (23:00 GMT), former Celtic goalkeeper Pat Bonner was heartened by the news, but frustrated by the length of time it has taken to bring in reinforcements.

“That’s the most promising thing I’ve heard from the manager in the past couple of weeks,” he said on Sportsound.

“Once you’re at the medical stage, the deal is done. They’re at the final stage, thank goodness. It’s dragged on and dragged on and dragged on.

“They have got to learn from that in the future.”

Celtic’s most recent addition Cvancara made an impact on his debut against Hearts last weekend, assisting Yang Hyun-jun in the 2-2 draw, and he opened his scoring account against Falkirk with a lovely glancing header.

The Czech Republic international had more touches in the Falkirk box than any other Celtic player and O’Neill believes there is plenty more to come from the big striker.

“It was great and it was the breakthrough as well too, which was needed,” O’Neill said. “And that’s nice for him and it’ll give him a really big boost of confidence.

“There’s parts of his game I think that obviously need tidying up, which I think he can do.

“He hasn’t played much football in recent times, so that’s two games for us, he makes the goal for us at Hearts – and I think at that stage he might have been the only player on our field who could have made that run at the time – and (on Sunday) he’s come in and he’s got the goal.