Rangers secure one-in-two hitman – a good call?

Rangers yesterday announced Jake Hastie on a four-year deal, following the worst-kept secret in Scottish football.

We were scathing of his performance at Fir Park against us a few weeks ago, pointing out how underwhelming it appeared to us. Some agreed. Some didn’t.

But he didn’t appear anything like the magical winger we’d anticipated, and David Turnbull (himself a target for English sides) was the standout till Rangers secured the opening goal.

But, the fact is, Steven Gerrard has made the judgement call to bring Hastie in for around £300,000 – his stats, let’s face it, are outstanding. The player we saw that day against us was not the one on paper who has such an excellent goals and assists haul (6 in 12 in the league), and naturally we sincerely hope that the scouts and management show themselves to know a hell of a lot more about football than we do.

Hastie has excelled for a decent Motherwell – his record since returning to Fir Park in January has been immaculate, and that’s what we will choose to focus on.

Also, with his being versatile, he can fill in at both left and right wing – he has played both slots many times this season, and Gerrard may well be looking at him with both Daniel Candeias’ age in mind, and Ryan Kent’s uncertain future.

We also have Jordan Jones to look forward to as well.

Yes, we were scathing of these signings a week or so again, and yes, we stand by our assertions that Hastie, Jones and the imminent Greg Stewart are probably not the stuff we need to secure a league title or challenge for one.

But we are football fans, and we have shiny new players coming in, and the job of a fan is to get excited about the potential of those who look promising. To scrape away the less convincing bits and hope it all works out.

And we will do that with Hastie and Jones.

Hopefully they will prove our management right.