“Limited by his own ability” – Rangers man’s Ibrox career comes to a close…

We’ll cover tonight’s stunning win over St Joseph’s in more detail tomorrow, but after a number of fans mocked the story about Daniel Candeias and suggested the wider fanbase had not learned from the past and ‘dodgy Turkish websites’, Steven Gerrard confirmed what we knew and the Portuguese was indeed negotiating a move to Turkey.

In truth, and we mean this with no disrespect, but this is a player we’re glad to see leave.

The man has shown Rangers only respect and dignity, so this is nothing personal – but ever since Kieran Tierney destroyed him in the Old Firm on his debut in that fixture, we never felt this was a player who would be good enough for our club long term.

It’s very odd on Ibrox Noise – we’ve had heavy criticism for too many plaudits for the former Benfica man, but he was far from a site favourite – quite the opposite in fact. We just tried to credit him for performances where they were due. And in his defence, he did produce a lot of very decent displays, but for us, he was a symptom of the Pedro disaster – a player limited by his own ability and who had had a journeyman career (aged 31 and his career is a litany of loans and brief stints at various mediocre teams).

Lest we forget, Daniel Candeias only managed two assists and a goal in all 14 UEL appearances as a Rangers player. That’s just not good enough in his position.

He was an honest player who gave everything in our shirt, and we certainly have no bad word to say about his attitude.

He put in a shift and worked extremely hard. But compare his numbers with his old mate James Tavernier in the UEL – the captain, from right back, managed 3 goals and 5 assists in the same number of appearances as the Portuguese – that tells its own story.

So, we can honestly say, as much as we don’t have a bad word to say about him personally, and professionally, we are happy to be moving on from him. The only Pedro remnants now at the club are Morelos and Jack – the former is subject to intense speculation as it stands and Jack has truly earned his place in the team.

But Candeias is free to leave – and Gerrard’s polite comments about being reluctant to let him go are just that – platitudes. He left him out the UEL squad for a reason.

We say to Candeias – good luck, and we wish you well in your future career.