What league-topping trait Daisuke Yokota will bring to Rangers as £3.4m deal nears

Daisuke Yokota will get Rangers fans out of their Ibrox seats.

The 26-year-old winger is widely reported to be on his way to Glasgow on Tuesday, after a £3.4million deal has been agreed between Rangers and Hannover.

After seeing Mikey Moore return to Tottenham and selling Oliver Antman to Anderlecht, Gers' flanks have been weakened this summer.

However, Yokota is primed to sharpen Derek McInnes' cutting edge down the right, with the Japanese winger having enjoyed a good 2025-26 campaign with Hannover.

Yokota has only just turned his loan deal with Hannover into a permanent one this summer, but he's now already set to leave the German 2.Bundesliga side.

And whilst he may not come with particularly eye-catching goal contribution numbers, he does have one standout trait that should see him become a major hit in Govan.

Where have few 2.Bundesliga wingers been better than Daisuke Yokota?

If there's one thing that Rangers fans want to see from all of their players, but especially wingers, it's to be brave in possession.

Of course, this wasn't the only reason the aforementioned Moore was a big success at Ibrox, but it certainly was a big part of it.

Gers fans will be relieved to hear that Yokota is a fearless winger with the ball at his feet, as proven by his underlying numbers at Hannover.

As per FotMob, Yokota's 54 successful dribbles in 2.Bundesliga last season ranked him in the top 3.8 percentile of players in his position in that division.

Back in 2024-25, Yokota completed 62 successful dribbles in just 25 2.Bundesliga games, which is an extraordinary rate and highlights how confident and impactful he is when running at full-backs.

Meanwhile, he also created 12 big chances, won 44 fouls and took 109 touches in the opposition box from his 30 league appearances, in which he scored five and provided four assists.

So, what is Yokota's story, and where has his career path taken him as it prepares to lead to Rangers?

Yokota once played his football in Latvia

Born on 15 June 2001 in the Tokyo special ward of Itabashi, Japan, Yokota began his youth career with Kawasaki Frontale.

From there, he also spent time with German sides FSV Frankfurt and FC Carl Zeiss Jena respectively, before joining Latvian outfit Valmiera in 2021.

After two years and 63 games for Valmiera, Yokota joined Polish team Gornik Zabrze in the winter of 2023, but would have signed for Belgian outfit Gent come January the following year.

Loans to German sides Kaiserslautern and Hannover would follow whilst still contracted to Gent, before he only left the Belgians to sign for Hannover permanently this summer.

So, Yokota has built up quite the travel experience of European football, and now aged 26 and in the prime of his career, he seems ready to tick Scotland off his list too.