Steven Smith first emerged in a struggling Rangers team before going on to enjoy success under name sake Walter Smith and the former left-back has been impressed with the impact of Borna Barisic in his old position this season.
Speaking on Rangers Fan Corner as part of the TEN10 podcasts network, Smith admires how the Croatian international has turned his Ibrox career around into becoming one of the first name on the team sheet and, in particular, the numbers he is contributing to in attack:
“It is unbelievable and I have got the privilege of watching it for RangersTV and still getting to go to the games and every time he gets a free-kick in a certain area you think he is going to score.
“He makes it look so easy and it is really not. It is a difficult technique but he seems to have mastered it and his deliveries from the wide areas are exceptional.
“When you have got him on one side and the numbers that Tavernier is producing on the other side, I think when people tell you the numbers it is scary. You are talking about forward players and strikers not even reaching those numbers so the two of them have been outstanding.”
I’ve always been a fan of Barisic but it took for him to score a late free-kick against St Mirren and to then win a 50-50 challenge leading to Sheyi Ojo’s goal against Feyenoord last season for him to be truly accepted by the majority of Rangers fans.
Will Barisic head to the Premier League in the summer?
Yes
No
He adds a balance to the team that was missing previously and means that teams simply can’t just double up on James Tavernier or Ryan Kent to blunt our attack, that our worst performance of the season saw Barisic spend most of the game on the bench isn’t a coincidence.
It’s no surprise that he is attracting interest from the Premier League and a decision will soon have to be made on his Rangers future, if he does depart, hopefully it will be with a Scottish Premiership winners medal in his back pocket and a sizeable cheque on the desk of Ross Wilson.