Mikey Moore has revealed that a second loan at Rangers was on the table until Danny Röhl left Ibrox in the summer, and the Tottenham teenager says going back to win a trophy there one day is “a dream of mine”.
The 19-year-old is now on loan at Köln, where he has made eight Bundesliga appearances, after Spurs sent him to Germany on deadline day. Last season he played 47 times for Rangers, scoring seven goals and setting up four more, in his first full taste of senior football.
Speaking in his first interview with Scottish media since leaving Glasgow, Mikey Moore told Record Sport exactly where the Rangers return broke down.
Why didn’t Mikey Moore go back to Rangers?
Talks were alive right up to the end of last season. Moore said: “We spoke throughout the year and even at the end of the season before we finished, there were talks with Rangers. I was speaking with my agent and he was up at Ibrox speaking with the owner and stuff. But to be honest, it kind of stopped when Danny left.”
Röhl left for Red Bull Salzburg, Derek McInnes took over, and Moore decided a fresh start under a new manager wasn’t the right move. “I think once he’d gone, it didn’t make as much sense for me,” he said. “As much as I loved my time, I don’t think it made as much sense for me to go back and start again afresh, especially at this point in my career when I just thought I needed to take another jump now. I needed to take another step, to push on to try and challenge myself.”
He also said he never spoke to McInnes about staying: “I didn’t speak to him personally. I’m not sure if there were chats with my agent and things like that… but no, I never spoke to Derek.”
The De Zerbi cameo before the move
Moore did get a run under Roberto De Zerbi before he left. He scored in the 5-1 Carabao Cup win over Charlton Athletic in August and set up a goal too, and a few days later he was on his way to Köln. His Spurs contract runs until June 2030, so any long-term decision on his future sits with Tottenham.
“It’s a dream of mine to go back there”
Asked if he has unfinished business in Glasgow, Moore did not hesitate. “100 per cent,” he said. “The connection I built there in Glasgow and the love I now have for the club means that for me, as long as I’m in a good place and I feel I can help the club, it’s a dream of mine to go back there at some point.”
The regret is the trophy that got away. Rangers went into the split with the title in their own hands, then lost to Motherwell, Hearts, Celtic and Hibs and finished third. “Is that my big Rangers regret, not getting to lift a trophy? Yeah, 100 per cent,” Moore said. “When I look back at it, we were in such a good position to do it.”
The press conference he doesn’t regret
The day before the final game of last season, Moore gave a blunt press conference calling for a change of mentality at Rangers. In the second part of the interview he stood by it.
“For me, it was quite an emotional press conference. I was brutally honest with what I thought was happening, because it was a really difficult few weeks where we’d lost four in a row,” he said. “But I think that interview is going to help in the long run. We needed a bit of a reality check at the time but I hope it came across the right way and didn’t look like I was digging people out. Because it was never about individuals.”
He still watches almost every Rangers game when he isn’t playing himself, and admitted the Old Firm is far worse from the sofa: “It’s a lot more nerve-wracking watching the Old Firms than playing in them.”
Where Moore is now: Köln and England Under-21s
His full Bundesliga debut came in a 1-1 draw with Werder Bremen in September, and his loan has been a slow build since, as we covered when he had five Bundesliga games and an assist last month. This international break brings a new step: a first call-up to the England Under-21s, alongside Archie Gray, for the friendlies against Portugal on Friday and France on Monday, as listed in our guide to Tottenham’s internationals this month.
Verdict: Spurs should like what they’re hearing
A Tottenham player saying he dreams of playing for another club might sound like a worry, but read it properly and it’s the opposite. Moore turned down an easy, familiar option because he felt he needed a bigger test, and he picked the Bundesliga. That’s exactly the mindset Spurs want in a teenager they have tied down until 2030.
The Rangers dream is a “some point” dream, not a January one. For now the job is Köln, the Under-21s, and showing De Zerbi that the boy who scored against Charlton has grown up by the time he’s back in N17.
