Gerrard reveals dramatic development with summer signing…

This summer Rangers struggled badly to secure striking talent. Kyle Lafferty was signed near the end of the window, of course, but the only name otherwise to come in was the much-vaunted Umar Sadiq who was arriving from Italy having had a fine season in Holland.

This mountain of a boy was going to tear up the SPL, right?

As we know, it’s all been a bit of a mare with young Sadiq, leaving his manager to resort to publicly attacking him, trying to get a reaction and make him raise his level.

If Steven Gerrard’s latest comments are anything to go by, it not only worked but Sadiq is in his thinking for tomorrow.

Rangers’ boss said:

“He has shown improvement. He’s been working very hard, he’s got his head down. He’s improved a lot, his application’s improved and his quality’s improved so yeah, he’s given me something to think about in the future. I don’t know if my warning helped him, that’s something you’d have to ask Umar. Sometimes when a manager is honest with you sometimes you have to self-reflect and go away and if you’re a proper footballer and a good footballer you analyse, self-reflect and come back stronger.”

Given Lafferty’s ban and the artificial pitch tomorrow, not only might Sadiq find himself on the bench but an outside bet of starting as well.

And who’d have thought that a couple of weeks ago.