99% of all Rangers fans got what they wanted as Nathan Patterson started at RB over James Tavernier on a purely tactical basis and not injury.

Ibrox Noise takes a look at the lad’s maiden start as a preferred choice to the captain and sees exactly how we feel he did.

It was a big day for Patterson, and pre-match the 19-year old was all smiles at getting the nod for such a huge match.

His performance, purely in stats, were the following:

Touches, 87, second highest behind his counterpart Borna Barisic.

Passing accuracy was 84%, respectable from his position.

He managed 4 dribbles, but failed on the ball 3 times with moves which didn’t come off.

He tried 10 crosses, 2 came off, but defensively he did very little indeed, with just two clearances and nothing else.

So, on the eyes, what did we see?

In the first half, he was nervous, that was clear – he was trying very hard, and lost the ball a few times, getting frustrated with himself. He was frankly very quiet and didn’t assert himself in that first 45 much at all, failing to stand out, and not getting forward with the aggression Tavernier normally would.

But this isn’t a comparison with the number one, it’s an analysis of Patterson in his own right.

The second half wasn’t an awful lot better until his cross pinned onto Kemar Roofe’s head and it visibly lifted him, giving an injection of confidence the first half had lacked.

However, Patterson had kept at it, and while the occasion had threatened to get the better of him, he overcame that and eventually had to call his afternoon a big success.

See, it’s not always about being superb 100% of the time, it’s about those killer moments that make the difference, and Patterson provided one when we needed it.

He remains raw, and he was seen naively bundling over a couple of Hibs players in their own halves, giving them breathing space with fouls but that’s the stuff you learn with time and development.

Overall he can be happy – will Tavernier consider him a threat?

If Patterson continues to develop, mature and improve, and show the consistency, Tavernier will indeed struggle for a lot of game time in the future.

Tavernier is captain, and right now, it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other over which of the two is the better player – which is a great position for Stevie to be in.