Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has again been waxing lyrical about the way the club have strengthened in the early few weeks of the January transfer window.
Although Rangers are on our winter break and have taken the opportunity to train in the sun, the gaffer was speaking recently to Rangers TV (via Sky Sports) and he was lauding the options that he now has when football returns.
Having relied upon Alfredo Morelos and Kyle Lafferty so far in the opening half of the campaign, having risen up the table to establish ourselves as real title contenders once again this year, Jermain Defoe coming in, along with a recall for Ryan Hardie from his loan spell at Livingston, sees Gerrard’s options boosted and confidence of maintaining our charge to the top has definitely risen with those captures.
“We’ve tried certain things with the way we play. Jermain gives us the option of obviously playing two up front, it gives us that luxury. Kyle also does that so we can go with a target man and a smaller guy around him. Ryan Hardie has come into the picture so it has been nice to work with four quality forwards. We haven’t had that luxury and that’s been really nice and a big positive. When we use Jermain, if we use him with another forward, everyone else will maybe have to adapt and evolve, but it’s so exciting to have the options because we haven’t really had that. We’ve only really had one or two ways of playing and we’ve tended to stick with that.”
Outside of what Defoe and Hardie can bring us in terms of individual qualities, the boost to competition and bringing out that extra few percent should certainly be a boost up top and I have no doubt Gerrard has already told Morelos, in particular, to pick Defoe’s brain when it comes to his own development as everyone knows the young lad has plenty to learn.