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Gerrard reveals reason for “surprise” Hibs selection that paid dividends

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Image for Gerrard reveals reason for “surprise” Hibs selection that paid dividends

The inclusion of Connor Goldson on Sunday wasn’t the only surprise in Steven Gerrard’s selection, no Steven Davis for a start, but the sight of James Tavernier on the bench – without any injury – was a real eyebrow raiser.

There is no doubting Nathan Patterson’s ability and you’ll not find a Rangers fan who doesn’t think he has a huge future ahead of him, but dropping the skipper for a top of the table clash against Hibs is a massive show of faith from the manager.

It had seemed that Tavernier was indestructible until his knee injury last season but, as Gerrard explained, we now don’t have to play him very game, given how good his understudy is, as reported by The Scotsman:

“It is difficult. It would have surprised an awful lot of people, which I appreciate. Tav is capable of playing 55-60 games, I know he is, because he is a machine and very robust.

“But he had an injury at the back end of last season and as a manager and a staff, we feel in the first three and a bit years we have overused James.

“We’ve had back-ups to come in and try and offload him but we haven’t had the back-up of the quality of Nathan Patterson who is a Scottish international.

“So we’ve got just as much trust in James as we have in Nathan and vice versa. We want maybe less games out of James but with more quality and foot to the floor.

“I believe that will help him career-wise and it will certainly help the group. The boys have to trust us with the decisions we’ve made and hopefully it will pay dividends at the end of the season.”

There is a subtle suggestion that Tav hasn’t been firing on all cylinders and that he’d rather have a 100% fit Patterson if his captain isn’t at his best, it was a decision that paid off though because the youngster was relentless in attacking down our right-hand side and put in some great crosses that were dying to be put away, as well as his assist for Kemar Roofe’s opener.

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Rangers went toe-to-toe with Inter Milan to sign Ronaldo when he left Barcelona.

Patterson is still rough around the edges but he’s barely played 10 games for Rangers, but one thing that can’t be questioned is his intensity and desire, two aspects of his performance against Hibs that played a huge part in us coming from behind and getting the three points – the manager clearly trusts them both, as we should trust the manager.

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