What does the Ibrox future hold for forgotten Rangers star?

We have written about this lad so many times on here, discussed him so many times, and yet each time rather than there being a good outlook and optimism, it just sinks deeper and deeper into despair for Jordan Rossiter.

This 20-year old arrived in summer 2016 under huge fanfare. We remember the hype – various Liverpool legends called him the next Steven Gerrard, and other comparisons were made with Barry Ferguson.

England’s U19 international captain, Rossiter had it all. Strength, power, workrate, vision, team ethic, and a host of other traits.

The one thing he did not have was fitness.

And that is why Jurgen Klopp allowed this impressive young talent to switch for a nominal cross-border fee to Scotland.

And in well over 18 months, Jordan Rossiter has only made 10 appearances for Rangers, which is tragedy beyond words. It feels like he has made more, but he barely makes ten fingers given some of those appearances were partial.

The latest ‘word on the street’ from manager Graeme Murty sums it up rather sadly:

“He is going through a hard time physically and psychologically.”

In short, Rossiter is depressed, and is seriously struggling to get fit, and keep that infectious grin of his going.

“He’s getting fantastic support”, Murty went on. “Our medical staff are taking really, really good care of him. What we want to do it take away any performance anxiety or any other stresses that he has so that he keeps his focus on getting his body right and making sure he can maximise his potential. Part of the way to do that is to take away time limits, take away restrictions on it and just make sure that holistically you look at everything in his life and around him that can put him in a positive place. We are not sure where we are time wise. We were looking at Jordan progressing. He’s not progressing as fast as we would like or, I’m sure, he would like. Having been injured for 18 months myself, the monotony of it, the grind of it and the fact that it never changes can really wear you down. So we need to make sure we give him a variety of different stimulus so that we can actually physically and psychologically take care of him as well as possible.”

The problem with this is Rossiter has been through about three different spells out injured, at Ibrox anyway. He had three bad injuries at Liverpool as well which cost him a year of his career, and he is in more or less his third one at Ibrox.

And they are not all related injuries. The first at Ibrox was back problems causing problems with his thighs and upper leg, then it moved onto an apparent calf injury, and now that is the official line again for the third spell out.

It is evident Rangers are looking for new blood in this area. Graeme Murty lacks a single truly established DM, with Ryan Jack perennially suspended or injured, and Ross McCrorie still yet to absolutely affirm himself as the solution there.

Meanwhile in front of these guys Carlos Pena is on his way out, Graham Dorrans is injured and has equally not produced overly well in his time at Ibrox, and Holt, while honest enough, is not of a good enough level.

So the likes of Hamilton’s Greg Docherty, QPR’s Sean Goss et all are either being looked at or signed to try to build something in midfield.

Because, truth be told, 18 months on from signing, and Rossiter’s problems are not improving but rather declining.

No one would be happier to see the bubbly anchor back in the squad than us – he is as good if not better than anyone else we have when fit.

But his reported £10,000 weekly wage is currently a hole in our finances and unless a solution can be found in a reasonable period of time, we must put the club first and consider terminating his deal.

And that hurts to say.