The Rangers winger Josh McPake returned to Ibrox this month.
The Rangers youth coach Graeme Murty maintains that Josh McPake has ‘bags and bags and bags of potential and quality’ despite his disappointing loan spell.
McPake caught the eye during Rangers’ pre-season campaign and is said to have had interest from several of England’s biggest clubs before committing his future to Ibrox.
The 18-year-old was later loaned to Dundee FC but only played seven times for the Championship side before heading back to Rangers this month.
And after his double in Tuesday’s development squad win against Partick Thistle, McPake now has three goals to his name in two outings this calendar year.
Asked about the player afterwards, Murty told the official Rangers Twitter page: “He’s not very happy with me because I took him off – he was on a hat-trick!
“He’s come back into the team, he’s not played a lot of football recently. But he looked a threat, he’s got wonderful feet, great technique.
“I’ve given him a bit of stick because he scored two goals, he could have had three or four. But a pleasing evening for him and a positive evening for him.
“And we’re looking at a man who’s got bags and bags and bags of potential – and bags of quality. So we have to make sure that we’re really careful with the noise surrounding him, we’re really careful with how we treat him.
“But he knows how highly we rate him. We want to give him the opportunity to shine and to grow and to make sure that when he has challenges in his career he’s supported by the best mechanisms around him that we can, and we believe we’ve got that.
“So we’ll continue to make sure that he gets what he needs in order for him to continue to progress in the long-term. Short-term, it’s good for him to get a couple of goals, but we’re looking more long-term into his holistic development of a young man who’s come a very long way in a short space of time so we’re conscious of that as well.”
Discussing his latest performance, McPake said: “Yeah, I’m very pleased, my confidence was a bit low, obviously, after the loan spell. I didn’t play as much as I wanted.
“So to get back, get games under my belt, get my fitness back, get goals. I’m feeling a lot better in myself.”
Having already played in competitive games for Rangers and Dundee this season, McPake cannot now be registered with another club – except for ones that play in a spring-to-autumn league – until next season.
He is therefore likely to remain at Ibrox until then, continuing his development under Murty, Peter Lovenkrands and co.
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