Former Falkirk loanee Zak Rudden is still awaiting his Scottish Premiership debut for Steven Gerrard’s Rangers.
13 goals, five assists and a Player of the Year award. It is fair to say Zak Rudden’s loan spell at Falkirk could hardly have gone any better from an individual point of view.
But any hopes the youngster had of returning to Rangers and forcing his way into Steven Gerrard’s first-team plans already look in tatters just a few weeks into the 2019/20 campaign.
Speaking to Rangers’ official website in March, Gerrard was effusive in his praise for Rudden, pointing out that the 19-year-old was a big part of his future plans at Ibrox. Five months on, however, the striker continues to be conspicuous by his absence.
Rudden has not featured in any of Rangers’ games either in Europe or the league so far this season. And with Gerrard admitting that he could turn to the transfer market to bring in a new striker before the end of the month, it seems that the Scotland U19 star continues to be oddly overlooked.
“For sure, we are going to need both of them (Alfredo Morelos and Jermain Defoe) fighting if we are to have any ambitions of moving forward,” he told the Daily Record.
“There is maybe an argument that we need a third striker, but we have other options who can play there. For us to have success here, we can’t rely on one striker.”
After another summer of intelligent, long-term additions, Rangers are stronger now than at any spell since they returned to the top flight in 2016. A title challenge might actually be on the cards over the next eight months.
So, with the pressure high and the desire to win bordering on the obsessive, perhaps it is simply too soon for Rudden to make his mark. He is, after all, a teenager who is yet to make his league bow for the Glasgow giants and Gerrard’s failure to even allude to him feels particularly telling.
After a superb spell at Falkirk which clearly caught the manager’s eye, you’d have thought that he would at least be afforded a brief cameo or two in the famous blue shirt.
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