Ross McCausland’s rise from fringe youth to borderline club prize asset has come out of the Rangers blue, and his ascent scarcely believable.
Only barely 13 days ago, he was coming on as a sub to replace the tiring Todd Cantwell v Sparta and giving a very good account of himself, before getting a shock and surprise start v Livingston 3 days later, before stunning the world by not only getting a call up for Northern Ireland, not only starting, but having a very comfortable match for his international debut.
In the staggering course of 8 days, he went from fringe Ranger to international pick.
We’ve never seen a rise like it.
It’s no surprise English Premier League sides are sniffing around, and Serie A outfits got wind of it too, with at least four sides in total confirmed as interested.
The reason they’re interested?
1: He’s already strolled it in Europe and on the international stage, while handling the pressure of playing for Rangers through all of this extremely well.
2: He’s out of contract next summer, and from nowhere, his situation has suddenly become infinitely more priority than the Barisics and Lundstrams of this world.
3: Rangers DO NOT want to lose him to a PL side for a pittance, if we must sell it should be for big money.
Rangers, however, do NOT want to sell at all. See, the big deal here, the game-changer is clearly Philippe Clement.
Rangers’ new manager has advocated youth from the start, and only a few matches into his Rangers career, this gem has appeared, being blessed with a chance to impress and seizing it – he would have had no opportunity under any previous Rangers manager of recent generations with the vast majority loathe to trust the youth.
And the timing of the Belgian has been perfect for talented young McCausland who has grown into a practical mainstay of a player inside 8 days of his major debut.
While we urged caution about expecting too much, this isn’t a child, it’s not a 17-year-old green around the ears type.
This is a grown man, 20, who is ready to stake a claim for a place, and frankly, with Rangers’ right-winger issues well-documented, this could be a staggering answer in-house.
From nowhere having had nothing of gravity on the right for decades, we could have he and Rabbi Matondo, along with Abdallah Sima.
On the left, Lawrence and potentially the return of Ryan Kent if a deal can be done there.
But this is getting ahead of ourselves.
Clement and Rangers want to keep the boy, and quite right too.
And it’s thanks to Clement we’re getting to see how good he actually is.
Gerrard? Gio? Beale? He’d have had no chance.