One key component to a successful football team is having balance.
Having too many similar players makes a team one dimensional, you have to be able to adapt tactics before and during a game, players who are versatile give you more option to do this.
In Juninho Bacuna we have a player who has weakness but his strengths far outweigh these, but he needs to be given a chance to show what he can do.
He’s played just 366 minutes for Rangers and has one goal and three assists, a goal contribution every 90 minutes give or take and yet he appears to be well down Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s pecking order for a place in midfield.
The problem, or perceived problem, is his work rate.
He isn’t the sort of player who will run around the park at 100 mph, but neither is he the sort of player to shirk his defensive responsibilities, Andrea Pirlo barely broke sweat when he played and yet he was one of the finest playmakers of the modern era – sometimes you have to make accommodations for a player that can make things happen.
Bacuna is perfect for the games that Rangers dominate possession in, particularly at Ibrox, he is also the perfect option to deputise for Scott Arfield – we should leave Joe Aribo in the number 10 role unless we have no other choice but to move him into midfield.
The deal that saw the 24-year old arrive from Huddersfield Town is unique in that we didn’t pay an upfront fee, basically, the more he plays and the better he plays, the more we will pay which, at the moment isn’t going to be very much.
You can’t write a player off after 360 minutes, especially when they have produced what was asked of them, with Aribo and Hagi unavailable for the foreseeable future, there’s no reason why we can’t make allowances for a magician who might be shy on perspiration but high on inspiration.