Kyrgiakos moves to rejoin Rangers

Kyrgiakos (left) helped Rangers to success last season

Rangers have completed the signing of Greek international defender Sotirios Kyrgiakos on a one-year deal.

The 26-year-old was on loan to Rangers from Panathinaikos last season but rejected an offer to make the move permanent at the end of last season.

A statement on the Rangers website reads: "We are delighted to have aquired his signature, having received permission from the SFA, SPL and Fifa."

Kyrgiakos had held talks with a number of English Premiership clubs.

The powerful centre half won a championship medal with Rangers and scored twice in the CIS Insurance Cup final win over Motherwell.

The move to complete his transfer was complicated when Panathinaikos were demanding a £1m fee, while Rangers insisted he should be a free agent.

Rangers then signed Jose Pierre-Fanfan, Brahim Hemdani, Ian Murray and Julien Rodriguez during the summer.

But remaining deficiencies in Rangers' defence were exposed by Hibernian on Saturday, when the Edinburgh club left a stunned Ibrox with a 3-0 victory.

Out-of-favour defender Zurab Khizanishvili is talking to Blackburn Rovers about a permanent transfer.

And fellow full-back Maurice Ross is interesting Millwall and Sheffield United.

Moves to Leicester City, Sheffield Wednesday and West Ham United had fallen through previously.

Talks aimed at moving Michael Ball to Birmingham City collapsed at the weekend.

Rangers manager Alex McLeish had also hoped to move on winger Peter Lovenkrands, who trained with Middlesbrough and was also linked with a move to Portsmouth.

The high wages of unwanted trio appears to have been a stumbling block so far to any move before Wedneday evening's transfer deadline.

Meanwhile, Serbian midfielder Dragan Mladenovic has had the last three years of his contract terminated by Rangers and has returned to his homeland in search of a new club.