Rangers, in my lifetime, seem to have been jinxed with players getting injured and not just niggly little ones either, career changing ones that require surgery to the extent that the player is never the same again.
Even in recent years we have seen Nikola Katic, Ianis Hagi and Jamie Murphy all suffer anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries, players who all had previously exemplary medical records.
Going further back, players like Seb Rozental, Oleg Kutsnezov, Alan McLaren and Michael Mols were all cut down way too early in their Rangers careers when a lot of them were tipped to be key players for club and country for years to come.
In the 80’s we had Ian Durrant, although his injury wasn’t bad luck, it was borderline assault, but a former target has emerged this week who could well have been playing with the former Gers midfielder, one who Durrant himself labelled as in the same bracket as Paul Gascoigne when it came to ability and talent – Paul Lake.
Damn right they would’ve. It was all about saving money. Here was a player who United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Rangers were all trying to sign at that time…
…and guess how much the club insured him for?
— Jo Lake (@Joanne_Lake) September 9, 2022
The English midfieder, as told by his own wife recently, was said to be on the radar of Graeme Souness as he looked to add more quality to his engine room and improve our chances in Europe.
If anything, Lake’s story is even more tragic than Durrant’s given how he was mistreated by Manchester City at the time – in 1990 he was so highly thought of that he was in England’s pre-World Cup squad to cover right-back and centre-half despite being, predominantly, a midfielder, at 21-years old, he was already captain of his club.
After recovering from his first ACL operation, Peter Reid, the City manager at the time, referred to him as being a £3million player. Given the time, only the likes of Roy Keane and Alan Shearer, domestically, would command such fees, he was that good a player.
As it was, in his early 20s he was never the same again due to a culmination of operations going wrong or his rehabilitation being neglected, a tragic tale of what might have been – who knows how things might have turned out if he had moved north to play in a different shade of blue before being struck by the worst possible luck.