The Glasgow Rangers legend has urged the Ibrox manager to give the two January signings game time against Cowdenbeath as they must get up to speed.
Glasgow Rangers legend Lee McCulloch has urged manager Steven Gerrard to give new signings Jermain Defoe and Steven Davis as much game time as possible in the coming weeks, starting with Wednesday night’s Scottish Cup trip to Cowdenbeath.
The veteran England striker and the former Light Blues midfielder joined the Ibrox outfit earlier in January to much fanfare, and both players were involved from the off in last week’s Scottish Premiership game against Kilmarnock.
Defoe opened the scoring for Gers at Rugby Park but could not prevent Killie from running out 2-1 winners, with both new arrivals substituted in the second half of the match, while in the following game, the 3-0 win at Livingston, both came on in the second period.
Up next for Rangers is their Scottish Cup fourth-round tie away at Cowdenbeath, which had to be rescheduled from its original date of January 18 due to a frozen pitch, the winner of which will meet Kilmarnock in the next round.
Writing in the Evening Times, McCulloch said Gerrard is likely to view the tie as an opportunity to rest some of his first-team stars and thinks the Liverpool legend really ought to select the two new signings in order to get them up to speed more quickly due to their lack of game time this term.
“Defoe and Davis both need match minutes right now because they haven’t had a lot of game time this season and this is a good opportunity for them, and some of the fringe players,” he wrote.
“You can do all the training in the world, but to get that match fitness you need to be playing games regularly and getting 90 minutes under your belt. It will help Defoe and Davis in terms of their sharpness if they can get a good run-out against Cowdenbeath.”
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