Alan Hutton believes Rangers must regret not signing Lewis Ferguson from Aberdeen when they had the chance.

The Scotland international is now flying high in Italy with Bologna where he recently overtook Dennis Law as the top-scoring Scotsman in Serie A history.

Ferguson has been a revelation with his club side and he is also starting to play his way into Steve Clarke’s Scotland just at the right time ahead of the European Championships in Germany later this year.

Rangers were linked with Ferguson when he was performing for Aberdeen in the Premiership, but a deal was never agreed between the two sides, despite Ferguson’s family association with the Ibrox club.

Hutton believes the 24-year-old would have been an ideal fit in Govan and he was left disappointed when his former side never pursued a deal.

He explained: “There has to be a bit of regret there. There have been a few players who have gone abroad and done really well that probably Rangers and Celtic would have looked at in the past.

“Lewis Ferguson is definitely one of them. He’s gone over there and it can’t be easy. But you listen to him doing his interviews now and he’s speaking the language and seems really settled.

“He’s going from strength to strength and is fighting to get into the Scotland team. Someone like that at Rangers at its moment in time would make them better.

“So I think they have missed out. There have been other ones as well – obviously Josh Doig going over and Aaron Hickey.

“There have been so many. Is that the reason – that they just preferred other targets or did maybe they didn’t trust them because they were a little bit young? I don’t know.

“I think for Rangers and Celtic to be looking at bringing these guys in makes them better.”

With the January transfer window now open, Hutton believes a new No9 is needed at Ibrox to strengthen the club’s title challenge.

He added: “For me, Rangers need a No9. That’s the big one as far as I’m concerned.

“Obviously Dessers has come in and, to be fair, it looks like he’s trying hard to appease everybody. But it’s not quite come off for him.

“I actually think in recent week he’s looked a bit better. But it’s small margins and, in the Old Firm game for example, Celtic had Kyogo up at the other end of the pitch who is a big game player.

“Dessers had a massive opportunity and didn’t take it. Kemar Roofe has had his injury problems, Sima has gone away, so I think Rangers need to look to bring somebody else in.”