Brilliant against Partick, but Jason Holt should remain on Rangers’ bench this weekend

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Glasgow Rangers midfielder Jason Holt was excellent in their last Scottish Premiership game, but should not come back in for the Ibrox side’s next fixture.

Having been excellent in the victory over Partick Thistle last Tuesday and with Rangers being handed a draw against a League One side in the Scottish Cup, Jason Holt may have gone into the weekend feeling that if he did not play in the cup, he would be in with a fantastic chance of returning for the weekend’s trip to Hamilton.

Cup games against lower league opposition often prove difficult for players to stake a claim. Playing well is the minimum and often expected, while playing poorly can arguably do more harm to a player’s first-team chances than not being involved at all.

So Holt may have been confident that sitting on the bench for the trip to Ayr would have done his chances of returning next weekend little harm at all, especially as he was one of the Gers’ best performers in their 2-0 win in their most recent Scottish Premiership clash.

But surely, after the way that Sean Goss and Greg Docherty played in midfield on Sunday, Murty would do well to justify bringing Holt back into the side unless he deploys one of the three in a different position.

Goss was simply fantastic in the 6-1 victory, while Docherty arguably performed extremely well given that it was his first start for the Light Blues since arriving from their next opponents during the January transfer window.

In a first-half where Rangers somewhat underwhelmed, the pair were easily two of the team’s better performers, and in the second-half, they maintained that form and stepped it up as Murty’s men pressed through the gears.

It would arguably be extremely harsh to leave either out of the starting lineup for the game against Hamilton this Sunday. And with Holt never quite being able to win over the entirety of the Ibrox fanbase, it would be no surprise if many wanted Murty to put his Partick performance to the back of his mind and allow Goss and Docherty to continue in their next game.