After an impressive individual display in Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final, John Souttar will be welcomed with open arms at Ibrox ahead of his pending move along the M8.
The Scotland international showed his qualities and skill set, putting in a sterling showing despite his Hearts side going down 2-0 at Hampden.
His existing contract at Tynecastle is set to expire next Tuesday – 31st May. At that point, his pre-contract agreement with Rangers will be triggered so expect an announcement to be made later next week to confirm his status as the first signing of the close season for Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
That look says it all welcome @JohnSouttar to the famous 🔴⚪️🔵 pic.twitter.com/ISr5UFvAni
— True Blues Loyal ©️™️®️ (@TrueBluesLoyal1) May 23, 2022
Capable
Souttar is ready to challenge for a place in this Rangers team, that is without doubt.
Already a Scotland international and playing at a high level, working under GvB and the coaches at Ibrox can bring his game to another level and hopefully this can be complemented with an improvement in his conditioning, with some concerns on his injury record.
Given that Connor Goldson appears to be heading for the exit, Souttar’s arrival provides a needed boost to numbers in central defence but at least one more addition is likely with question marks remaining on Fil Helander and Leon Balogun.
As a ball playing centre-back, comfortable moving forward, there is a bit of a similarity with Souttar and Goldson but it would be unfair to describe them as like-for-like. The Aberdeen-born player strode forward threatening the Gers defence at Hampden at one point, giving another indication of what he is capable of.
Gio van Bronckhorst will have liked what he saw.
To his credit, Souttar recovered from injury in recent weeks to take his place at Hampden and now he will join up with Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad for the World Cup clash with Ukraine and as well as the Nations League games to follow against Armenia and Republic of Ireland.