Joe Garner has shown Rangers what they are missing with a superb start to life with Ipswich Town.
Joe Garner always appeared up against it attempting to succeed at Rangers.
A prolific goalscorer in England’s third tier with Preston North End, it’s fair to say the livewire centre-forward didn’t quite replicate the same prolific feats at Ibrox – and the less said about his £1.8 million price tag, per the BBC, the better.
After netting just seven goals in 31 Scottish Premiership games, few Rangers fans were left in mourning when the club sold him to Ipswich Town at an £800,000 loss this summer, as reported by the Eastern Daily Press.
Yet, while Rangers failed to break down a stubborn Hearts side in Saturday’s goalless draw at Ibrox, falling five points behind Celtic as a result, Garner notched his third goal in four games for Ipswich in their 2-0 win over Brentford. The fact that Martyn Waghorn, who joined Garner in swapping Ibrox for Portman Road, also scored didn’t help matters.
Yet, perhaps Rangers should not resort to kicking themselves as their expensive flop shows signs of rediscovering his pre-Ibrox form. After all, Garner was always more likely to succeed at Ipswich than Rangers.
The former Nottingham Forest and Watford frontman admitted just three months into last season that he was struggling to get to grips with former Rangers manager Mark Warburton’s pass-and-move philosophy, having thrived on the direct, physical game of the English lower leagues.
Pedro Caixinha has largely maintained Warburton’s desire to play the ball on the deck, suggesting that Garner’s fortunes wouldn’t have changed too much at Ibrox this season.
Meanwhile, Ipswich’s veteran boss Mick McCarthy cares less about style and more about hard-work and edge – something Garner possesses in abundance. He was his rambunctious best against Brentford, hassling, harrying, winning headers and scrapping for loose balls – a style that always looked at odds with the respective philosophies of both Warburton and Caixinha.
Perhaps Rangers were simply the wrong club for Garner.
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