The performances of James Tavernier and Borna Barisic this season have been a major reason for Rangers winning the Scottish Premiership title so convincingly, the flying full-backs producing numbers that most wingers would be jealous of.
With 22 goals and 28 assists between them, the dynamic duo have been sensational and have obviously attracted attention from further afield and with the pair both in their peak years, it could be the time to cash in.
The skipper appears to be going nowhere but there does need to be a succession plan and with this in mind, Heart and Hand, led by the Rangers podcast’s tactics guru, Adam Thornton drafted in Dundee United analyst and tactics author Lee Scott to discuss potential targets on “Scout Report“.
Latest scouting pod now live on @ibroxrocks
Delighted to be joined by @FMAnalysis to discuss four full backs that could be a good fit for Rangers:
Tymoteusz Puchacz
Josh Doig
Alexander Bah
Junior SambiaComparisons with Barisic/Tavernjer also attachedhttps://t.co/kJ10yxQZYw pic.twitter.com/8ArH9zI4Hw
— adam55ki152 (@adamski152) March 25, 2021
Three of the players are well known to us through playing against them, the left-backs Tymoteusz Puchacz for Lech Poznan in the Europa League and Josh Doig for Hibernian and right-back Alexander Bah for Slavia Prague although I wouldn’t expect us to be conducting civil business with them any time soon.
Thornton and Scott discuss the requirements of the modern Rangers full-back and what it will take to replace the current duo in possession of starting jerseys, it is near on impossible to replace their immediate output unless we are going to start spending £20million a head as Scott rightly alludes to.
With this in mind the players mentioned all fit the transfer model that Ross Wilson and his team are looking to implement but it may be that the future of the position lies closer to home and a route I’d like to see us go down.
It’s still early days, but in Nathan Patterson and James Maxwell we have two outstanding youngsters, not only are they promising defenders, they fit the mould of the type of full-back that we need, there will be positions where we have to go out and buy players that we can sell later on at a profit but the ultimate goal is to develop our own, this can only be done if we give them the chance – if and when, Tavernier and Barisic move on we have to be brave and do something that we’ve not done for years, trust the academy.