Michael Beale has confirmed John Lundstram is to be a mainstay of his Rangers team going forward, and wants a contract extension for the midfielder as soon as possible.
Rangers’ manager found himself juggling with midfield options in the first few matches of his reign, with Finland’s Glen Kamara getting more than a few outings, but with the big Englishman’s return to form in recent weeks, the ex-Sheffield juggernaut has become undroppable again and Beale has no intention of letting him go.
He said:
“Yeah, definitely [to a new contract]. John knows what I think of him and we are both on completely the same page. He was one of the first players I talked to when I came back to Rangers. I didn’t communicate with him much before the Scouse mafia was here – they used to speak their own language! Steven and John had a good relationship with him, I was more of a coach. But when I came back in, he was someone I wanted to sit down with straight away and explain how important I thought he was.”
And time has borne that out – Lundstram has quietly returned to his typical form from earlier in the year, his passing back to being exceptional and his defensive and attacking game being imperious.
It’s true he probably won’t ever be a ‘Barry Ferguson’ type of playmaker who pulls strings deep from midfield, but he does absolutely everything else, and he’s reinstalled himself as first pick justifiably with a manager who truly does rate the guy and will pick him more often than not.
Indeed, it’s clear Beale will build a team around Lundstram, which may well explain the potential addition of Todd Cantwell as a young foil alongside the Scouser, with so many midfield contracts expiring this summer.
But we can be sure Lunny is going nowhere and is one of those players who may have joined Rangers because of Steven Gerrard and the Champions League, but is now truly one of our own and loves everything about the club. He gives his all to Rangers pretty much every single match and it shows.