Two groups of three – doesn’t work for Stevie?

As we touched on earlier, the two Northern Irish ‘deserters’ have arguably been failures since they came back to Ibrox, but it also raises a curious point as well.

Their fellow international team mate Gareth McAuley has been completely out of the first team picture since the Killie loss, not even making the bench half the time – just what is it about the Northern Irish internationals that doesn’t seem to be working at Ibrox?

And you’re probably wondering about the ‘second group’ – well, no one is going to say with a straight face that the Croatian trio have lived up to expectations either – Barisic has been patchy at best, Katic lost his place months ago and Grezda (came from a Croatian side even if he is Albanian) barely impressed beyond the Motherwell match and he’s been injured most of the season too.

It seems like two collections of players, the Northern Irish internationals and the Croatian-based trio are not selection regulars (possibly Barisic aside, maybe?) with Stevie G, despite him signing all six of them, and more often than not none of them play.

Instead he elects to use the other options he has – last night only Barisic of all six of them (we know Grezda is injured) managed to clinch a starting berth (albeit removed for Halliday who made his point with another goal), and merely Barisic and Davis v St Johnstone, with the latter coming off on 59 minutes following a poor outing.

Lafferty, McAuley and Katic to name just three of them have to make do at best with places on the bench.

For what it is worth, we are not exactly criticising this state of affairs – Stevie has his preferred selections and defence-wise given it’s three shutouts in a row, we have no argument there.

It’s just very interesting the two trios of players are probably the most out-of-favour at the club – is it purely ability?

Hit us in the comments what you think it’s down to.