Rangers lured Scott Arfield to Ibrox on a free transfer last summer.
Former Falkirk boss John Hughes has revealed to The Scottish Sun that Scott Arfield needed some advice from him before settling on a move to Rangers.
Arfield, 30, made 18 Premier League appearances for Burnley last season, but decided to leave the Clarets when his contract expired last summer, enabling him to become a free agent.
Despite links elsewhere, Arfield penned a deal with Rangers, making a return to Scottish football for the first time since leaving Falkirk for Huddersfield Town in 2010.
The Canadian international has always been an understated, hard-working player, but he has been a real star for Steven Gerrard’s Rangers this season – and arguably one of his best signings.
Arfield has scored 11 goals in 42 games for Rangers this season, a very strong return for a midfielder, and he even bagged a first career hat-trick in Sunday’s 3-0 win over Motherwell.
Whether he’s deployed centrally or out wide, Arfield has been a dependable figure this season, and made himself an Ibrox favourite with a superb display against Celtic and Scott Brown in December.
Now, his former Falkirk boss Hughes has admitted that Arfield called him to discuss the Rangers move, as he had doubts about putting himself in the bitter Celtic-Rangers rivalry – but as he planned to live out of Glasgow, Hughes urged him to make the move.
That one doubt could have cost Arfield a great move, and Hughes is delighted that he took the chance to join Rangers, believing it was an opportunity he simply couldn’t pass up.
“He phoned me up when he had the chance to go to Rangers, and asked me what I thought. He was thinking about all the Celtic-Rangers stuff and all that,” said Hughes. “I asked him where he was going to stay and it was well out of Glasgow. I told him straight away to go for it. Any player who gets a chance to play for either side of the Old Firm, you go and take it. The only thing I thought about was Scotty was coming from the Premier League.”
“To go from there and come back to Scotland, you are encountering some very different stadiums, no disrespect to them, than Arfield was used to down south. I told him he had to get his head around that, but this was a chance to play for Rangers. By the time Scott signed, Gerrard had already been confirmed as manager and took over a few weeks later. He is such an iconic figure in football. For Scott to go in there and work with Stevie Gerrard and Gary McAllister, and play for Rangers, is brilliant,” he added.
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