Rangers left back Borna Barisic has hinted that his attitude last season was wrong and he’s effectively a ‘new man’ this campaign especially when it comes to dealing with injury.

The Croat international, in line to start tonight, had a pretty dire opening season in Glasgow, with injury and form loss curtailing his progress, and apparent attitude issues seeming to blight his recovery.

But as Ibrox Noise suggested in this piece some weeks ago, the player himself didn’t seem to fully grasp the pressure at Ibrox and struggled to recover after injury.

He said:

“My first season was up and down and up and down for me. It wasn’t easy as I had three or four injuries and it is not easy to always come back, especially after the third then the fourth one. So I cannot say I am happy with that but I know what I need to do to improve myself. I needed to have a good pre-season which I think I got.”

But then the telling comment comes in the next passage:

“This season too I will be smarter about my injuries and be stronger for it. This is a new season and I want to be a ‘new Borna’ in Glasgow.”

In short, Barisic did not approach things at Ibrox properly, which led to a lot of break down – and he didn’t recover properly either.

He is now a year to the wise, and with a pre-season under his belt and an experience of 12 intense months in Govan, ready to be the player we signed. And if pre-season performances so far are anything to go by, he’s going the right way about it.