Ibrox side Glasgow Rangers are looking to close the gap to their Old Firm foes at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha
Former Rangers midfielder Gordon Smith has suggested to The Sunday Post that the Gers need to be looking at trying to get the very best out of the players they already have like Brendan Rodgers has done at Celtic, and hinted that one old Gers youngster proved in midweek that he may have been discarded too early.
The Light Blues are looking to close the sizeable gap to Celtic, and the board appear to feel that Pedro Caixinha is the man to do just yet.
But with Rangers’ budget likely to be considerably smaller than their Old Firm foes’ this summer, Caixinha will have to be smart if he wants to construct a team capable of closing the gap.
And Smith has suggested that adopting Rodgers’ approach when it comes to the existing squad may be the best way for the team to put pressure on the Hoops.
“Efforts must be made to get more from the players who are being kept on at Ibrox,” he told The Sunday Post.
“It is a fact of Old Firm life that you will always be judged against what is happening at the rival club.
“The success of Brendan Rodgers in bringing the best out of young talents such as Stuart Armstrong and James Forrest can’t be denied.
“We only need to look at the impact made by former Rangers youngster Fraser Aird for Canada against Scotland to see how important this is.”
Fraser Aird
While Smith has hinted that he feels that Aird – who left for Falkirk in January – may have been let go of too soon, and there is no question that he played extremely well during Canada’s friendly with Scotland, a large portion of the Ibrox faithful would suggest that he had more than enough chances while attached to the club and did not show that quality on anything like a regular basis while representing the Gers.
But perhaps Smith’s argument is that with the right manager in place, Aird and several other youngsters could have realised that potential and made the kind of impact that Armstrong and Forrest have across the city this term, and thus, Caixinha should not just dive into the transfer market this summer to try and fix the problems.
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