Pedro Caixinha identifies where Rangers’ Cardiff City loanee Declan John must improve

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Rangers decision to sign Declan John on loan from Cardiff City is looking like an excellent one already.

Declan John moved to Rangers on loan in the summer hoping to kick-start a career that had stalled under Neil Warnock at Cardiff City. And it’s fair to say the Welsh international has made the best possible start.

John marked his first league start for Rangers with two goals inside the first 25 minutes as Pedro Caixinha’s side cruised to a 4-1 win at Hamilton in the Scottish Premiership last Friday evening.

And it’s easy to forget that the 22-year-old is still adapting to a largely new role, filling in for the injured Lee Wallace at left-back having spent the majority of his career playing a little further forward.

Manager Pedro Caixinha, however, believes that John could benefit from a little more coaching as he attempts to make the left-back spot his own over the coming months.

Room for improvement

“Declan is a player that was never coached how to play as a left back. So he did it a couple of times with us and he did it very well, because we are a team that likes to attack and likes to have the full-backs go up and attack,” Caixinha told the Daily Record. “So he can give us that.

“We will try to coach him a little bit more now, not only to defend the wide area but the relation with the winger in front of him, the midfielder on his side and also the centre-half from his side.

“He needs to know those relations and which space he needs to cover when he is defending, but he is also a player who can play as a winger.”

John’s season-long loan spell at Rangers certainly carries an element of ‘make-or-break’. His contract at Cardiff City is expiring at the end of the current campaign and as long as Warnock remains in charge it appears he does not have a future in South Wales.

And with the World Cup rolling around in Russia next year, John will know that he needs to maintain his excellent start to life at Ibrox in order to force his way into Chris Coleman’s plans.