For all that it was “just a friendly”, the Arsenal game through up a lot of interesting points for discussion, one of them being the future of Glenn Middleton.
Steven Gerrard has spoken before about how he sees the Scotland youth cap of being capable of playing anywhere down the left-hand side and has seen more game time at left-back than his more natural position in the forward line in his last few outings in Light Blue.
We saw both sides to the 21-year old against Arsenal, an inch perfect corner for Cedric Itten to score Rangers second and minutes later a powerful over lapping run that led to him putting an opportunity for Stephen Kelly to make it 3-1 on a plate, this is what he would give in an attacking sense if he was to be deployed at left-back.
However, similar to the game against Tranmere, he was caught out defensively in the build up to Arsenal’s second but, personally, I don’t think we should be too harsh on him. It isn’t his natural position and he would never be expected to play there in a game where he is expected to defend for most of the game.
When you compare him to Calvin Bassey it’s easy to see where the biggest differences are, Middleton has a better end product because he is used to being in those positions so it may be that in less physical games or games when we will have most of the ball that he gets the nod, when you want someone who is more used to stopping than creating, Bassey is your man.
I still think he has the ability to be a success at Rangers and he has shown enough to suggest that he could have a future in the more defensive role, he just needs to work on one aspect of his game, defending…