Rangers haven’t been behind for a single minute since Giovanni van Bronckhorst took the reins at Ibrox, however, on Sunday against Hearts we should have been.
An inch perfect long ball – which is a bit of an Achilles heel for us – was met by Liam Boyce but the striker gave Allan McGregor the half chance he needed to make the save, it could, and should, have been 1-0 to Hearts.
But who played the pass?
None other than Rangers target John Souttar.
In a weird mirror image, the man that he might replace was at it as well from the other end of the park, two raking passes from Connor Goldson being key when scoring our two goals, Joe Aribo doing what Boyce couldn’t by making the most of an outstanding pass.
It wasn’t Souttar’s only involvement in the game, he could have dealt with Goldson’s ball to Aribo better but, as we saw against Livingston, sometimes quality has to be applauded, and there wasn’t much he could do once the Rangers forward’s first touch was so perfect, however, he ended up as Hearts highest rated player on Sofascore.
His passing accuracy was 91% which included 14 of his 17 long ball attempts, a quality needed to play out from the back for Rangers as we have seen with Goldson over the last couple of years, he also had two key passes showing that he can be involved in chance creation from a deeper position.
Souttar is clearly getting back to his best now and his rampaging run in the second half that ended with him leaving Aribo and Borna Barisic for dead to get a cross in shows that he has the ability on the ball that we demand from our defenders, on a free transfer it’s a move that just makes so much sense.
Ross Wilson has always been proactive in his recruitment and I’d be very surprised if we haven’t already spoken to the centre-half given that he is now free to speak to other clubs, we can’t wait for Goldson to make his mind up, especially when we have watched someone prove that they can do the same job against the best team in the country.