Ianis Hagi has polarised debate recently about his position in the Rangers team under Giovanni van Bronckhorst and how he best fits into the system that he currently employs, a patchy performance against Dundee United doing little to win the doubters over even if he was announced as man of the match.
The 22-year old will always attract attention because of his football upbringing and the expectation of him to live up to the family name, and in his relatively short time at Rangers he has been linked with numerous clubs in top five leagues.
Serie A and La Liga sides have been mentioned as being interested in the Romanian international in recent weeks and even if he might be considered to be one of our most saleable assets and one of the easiest to replace, it doesn’t mean that he is banging down the manager’s door requesting a move, far from it.
In fact, his old man, Georghie, has told respected journalist Emanuel Rosu – the one who first broke news of Hagi’s move to Rangers – that he is going nowhere:
“I’m going to Ianis (at Christmas), I can’t wait to see him. He’s staying with Rangers, he loves it there.”
Ianis has spoken in the past about how much he loves the pressure of playing for Rangers, his commitment and work rate can never be questioned, but he just hasn’t been firing on all cylinders since Giovanni van Bronckhorst arrived as manager.
The Dutchman has started him in every game except one but not many have been convinced that he looks at home on the right-hand side of attack, he looks infinitely more comfortable centrally where his lack of pace isn’t exposed.
Hagi, despite his 23 international caps, is still a very inexperienced footballer and will develop, after all, if he was the finished article, he wouldn’t be at the club in the first place.