When you take out the emotional aspect of Nathan Patterson moving to Everton for a club record transfer fee, it really is an incredible piece of business for the club.
In an ideal world the Scotland international would leave having played hundreds of games but modern football just isn’t like that and Rangers fans, in particular, need to get used to being a stepping stone for most players that we develop.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst will have money to spend in January but he doesn’t need to buy a right-back, first of all, how do you sell the current situation to a player?
The reason Patterson is heading off is because he can’t get enough game time where he is because of the quality of the player in possession of the starting jersey every week, there is also the small matter of him being the club captain – if we sign a player better than James Tavernier, not only is a key player going to be pretty annoyed but we would probably have to spend a small fortune.
Full-backs with 11 assists in 18 games don’t grow on trees.
The sensible, most practical option is to promote from within and it is part of the reason Van Bronckhorst replaced Steven Gerrard, he has a track record of youth development.
In Adam Devine and Leon King we have two players with huge potential, the latter might not be a natural right-back but he has been around the first-team for a while and with less emphasis on the full-backs having to play higher up the pitch he could find himself on the bench or filling in for Tavernier more often.
Devine – with five assists in eight games across the UEFA youth league and Challenge Cup – is more similar to Patterson in terms of playing style in that he is comfortable in possession and driving at opposition defenders, he still has some development to do physically but he looks like he has all the basic tools needed to make the step up.
King is one of our brightest prospects but I’d rather he was given time to progress at centre-half and that Devine is given a chance, after all, the academy players have to see a clear pathway to the first-team if we are to persuade them that their future is at Rangers and that they too can follow in Patterson’s footsteps.