Why Rangers deal to sign Jens Hjerto-Dahl is now at major risk of being hijacked

Cardiff City are pulling out all the stops to steal Jens Hjerto-Dahl from Rangers.

The 20-year-old is widely known to be a big target for Rangers this summer.

Derek McInnes has already bolstered his central midfield ranks with Cammy Devlin and Dan Neil from Hearts and Sunderland respectively.

However, Dahl would provide a much greater attacking threat than those two, having already notched seven goals and two assists in 14 games for Tromso in 2026.

Should the Norwegian youth international arrive at Ibrox this summer, it would be yet another huge statement of intent from Gers.

However, English Championship side Cardiff City are going to fight with Rangers all the way in the hope he becomes a Bluebird instead.

What Cardiff have done to swing Jens Hjerto-Dahl race in their favour

Ibrox News has been tracking recent reports that claim Rangers don't in fact have an agreement in place to sign Dahl after rumours on the contrary had emerged.

Competition was always going to be fierce for the midfielder this summer, and now Rangers may have fallen further behind in the race to win his services.

A report from Wales Online has revealed that Cardiff are still in discussions with Dahl over a move to Wales, and that their owner, Vincent Tan, is now also closely tracking how the negotiations are going.

They claim that Cardiff are in a "strong position" to get a deal done for Dahl, with sources informing them that belief inside the Championship outfit is increasing that they are moving closer to striking an agreement.

And, with Tan now heavily involved in the situation, that would suggest Cardiff are putting all their cards on the table to give themselves the best chance of convincing Dahl to snub Rangers and join them instead.

So, with Cardiff possibly now favourites to sign him, what might it be that attracts Dahl to the Bluebirds over a move to Govan?

What are the boxes Cardiff will tick for Dahl

Firstly, having just won automatic promotion from League One to the Championship, Cardiff are clearly showing strong signs of ambition to compete for back-to-back promotions in 2026-27.

If they were to do that, then of course the allure of Premier League football, and at the very least the quest to get there, could be very attractive to Dahl.

Then there's Cardiff's recruitment and squad-building philosophy, which is largely centred around signing young players and providing pathways for their talented academy stars to shine in the first-team.

Indeed, they hired manager Brian Barry-Murphy, who has years of experience coaching in Man City's academy system, to help them install that philosophy even further.

As a result, City have a very young squad indeed, with only two players in Calum Chambers (31) and Perry Ng (30) over the age of 30.

Rangers do have a young side as well for the most part, but perhaps not with as much emphasis placed on putting faith in young talent as Cardiff do.

The Bluebirds don't have massive amounts of squad depth in central midfield either, and would likely walk into a starting role for them, whereas he would face some stern competition for minutes at Ibrox.

So, whilst Rangers can offer European football and are perennial silverware contenders domestically, Cardiff's vision for the future may better align with Dahl's, and it offers him a crack at winning promotion to the Premier League.