In years gone by, the reserve league used to be made up of promising youngsters and first-team players that were either returning from injury or who had been short of game time, very rarely nowadays do you see a senior player turning out along side the youth team.
So, when Cedric Itten’s name appeared on the team sheet for the B team’s Glasgow Cup game against Celtic, it’s safe to say that a few eyebrows were raised, that he failed to make any real impression other than one shot that went straight to the keeper tells it’s own story – Ross Wilson will have his work cut out getting anywhere near our money back on the Swiss international striker.
It’s a position that is understandably hard to fill, that of the third choice or back up striker. It’s almost impossible to have players of the same quality unless you are Man Utd’s 1998/99 treble winning side or Rangers in the late 80’s/early 90’s when we had Ally McCoist, Mark Hateley and Maurice Johnston.
So how do you solve it?
One option which has been discussed already by Vital Rangers is to promote from within, Juan Alegria has yet to open his account with Partick Thistle but has looked more than capable of handling senior football, the other is Tony Weston, whose goal record speaks for itself.
The other, is to sign a player who wants to play for the club first and foremost with playing time coming further down their list of priorities, a recent example would be Greg Stewart who rarely featured but never really let us down when he did, as boyhood fan, he was just happy to play his part whenever he got the chance.
In Oli McBurnie – valued at £6.3million – you have a similar player, one who has been linked with us before. Not good enough to replace Alfredo Morelos or Kemar Roofe but would certainly be able to support them. Being a Scotland international would also help with the UEFA quota.
He’s not had a great time since signing for Sheffield United but a chance to move to the club he supports could reignite his form, he’s also the type of forward that thrives on service and he would certainly get that at Rangers.
McBurnie is a player that will always polarise debate, his link up play and technical ability is underrated by most, however, a £20million transfer fee hanging over his head will always form part of any analysis, just as it did with Tore Andre Flo when he moved to Ibrox – with a year left on his current contract he has a big decision coming up.
I wouldn’t want to build my team around him or expect him to score 20-30 goals a season but he is the type of striker that could work in our system, he might not be everyone’s cup of team, but I’d back him not to end up playing B team football if we did take the punt.