Giovanni van Bronckhorst has confirmed the news many Rangers fans wanted to hear: £6M man Ridvan Yilmaz is to play a bigger role going forward and is about ready to start playing.
The Turkish international, it seems, has taken longer than most to settle in Scotland, and has struggled with the language and culture, which is not surprising given he’s literally a 21-year old lad.
But Gio has confirmed he’s now much much more acclimatised to the UK, to Glasgow and to Scottish football now and is much more ready to play than before, with his starting now being ‘no problem’ according to the manager.
Indeed, Rangers’ boss gave away a big, big reason as to why Yilmaz has been benched pretty much every week and out-of-form Borna Barisic has kept his own place – his lack of English.
Ridvan didn’t speak a word of English when he made this move, and that’s meant he’s struggled to integrate with the squad, and being so young that is far from ideal.
The same happened with Alfredo, didn’t speak a word of English (still barely does) when he arrived but was of the mental strength to deal with that and was able to handle the change in culture more easily because he’d already done so by switching from Colombia to Finland.
But Ridvan?
This was his first time outside Turkey and for one so young, it clearly got the better of him for the first couple of months.
But the club has done everything it can to adjust him to life in Scotland, and Gio dropped a huge hint about his English:
“He didn’t speak good English when he came. He is improving that so he is able to communicate now with his team mates. That is something you have to take into account as well before we let him play.”
And that seems, as much as anything else, the reason Yilmaz has been sidelined so long. Culture clash, lack of language, lack of integration.
Things which have been massively improved lately.
Expect to see a lot more of Ridvan in a Rangers shirt in the coming months.
I will believe it when l see it, Ridvan should have never been signed same as a few other players, not fit to wear our jersey
Seems more drivel coming out our increasingly beleaguered coaches mouth ,strange how young guys from japan and portugal who dont speak a word of english have hit the ground running elsewhere .
Cut the BS gvb .
Cods whallop
A professional footballer costing that much can’t kick a ball as his English is bad ? Heard it all . Whoever wrote this article is related to Liz Truss .
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