Zlatan Muslimovic cuts short his spell at Rangers

The Bosnian striker arrived at Murray Park on Monday and was expected to spend the week with Ally McCoist’s squad. But hte player refused to play in a bounce game against Carlisle United on Tuesday, choosing instead to link up with Martin O’Neill’s team.

Muslimovic, who is without a club following his summer departure from PAOK Salonika, remains open to an offer from the SPL side. But his agent, Jan Bezemer, has confirmed his client will spend the remainder of the week in England.

“Zlatan trained at Rangers yesterday,” he confirmed. “Everything was nice and we were interested.

“But now another offer has come in to train at another club. Zlatan trained at Sunderland today and we will now see how that works out.

“Zlatan had a very good feeling about Rangers. They are a very nice club, the trainer was a good man and he spoke very well.

“Rangers want him but we have lots of interest in the player. He would like to play in a good league. The leagues in Scotland and England fall into that category.”

The striker, who has 33 international caps, was one of a number of trialists under consideration by McCoist. Dutch midfielder Luigi Bruins also arrived on Monday, joining Honduran midfielder Jorge Claros and Estonian right back Enar Jaager.

Muslimovic, who has Swedish citizenship, played youth football in Sweden before being picked up by Udinese. The forward spent seven years under contract with the Serie A club but failed to win a first team place.

Udinese sent the player out to seven clubs and after short-term spells at Perugia, Pistoiese, Ascoli, Padova, Rimini, Messini and Parma, he left the club permanently to join Atalanta.

A single season in Bergamo failed to bring success and Muslimovic moved to PAOK in 2008.