With Jermain Defoe proving that age is no obstacle recently, making a more than telling contribution with three goals and two assists in his handful of appearances, a fellow veteran has also been raising the bar for the standards required at Rangers.
Allan McGregor has a genuine challenger to his number one position in the shape of Jon McLaughlin, that both keepers have nine clean sheets demonstrates how well they and the defence have been playing this season, but at 38-years old, the former 42-cap Scotland international shows no signs of letting up.
In reality, his age should be irrelevant as long as he is still performing at the standard we know he is capable of and, so far, he has yet to show any drop in his ridiculously high levels which has led to Football Insider claiming that a new deal is in the offing.
McGregor’s contract expires at the end of this season and there is every chance that he will be given the chance to extend it for another year, safe in the knowledge that if injuries catch up with him McLaughlin is ready to step in.
The long-term plan remains for Robby McCrorie to become Rangers first choice keeper, but he is still only 22-years old and has plenty of time ahead of him to develop, that McGregor was 24 before he really established himself between the sticks at Ibrox gives an example of the timeline we should expect for the Scotland youth cap.
With younger players the mantra has always been “if they are good enough – they are old enough”, and veterans should be dealt with in a similar manner, at Vital Rangers we wrote about Defoe earlier in the week, “if they are good enough – they are young enough”, there is no point going out and signing a new keeper when we can offer the best one in the country the chance to stick around for another year.