It is safe to say that there are many players at Rangers who are nowhere near the level required for this club. Quite a few of them have already been signed by Danny Rohl, but many came in during the last window as well. There are also the long term players who have never been up to the level, but have remained in the squad. However, one of them really stands out at the moment as having an absolutely dreadful 25 to 26 campaign. Unfortunately, he recently received a brand new contract. John Souttar’s new contract was not a good idea.
John Souttar’s dreadful season
Yes, previous Ibrox Noise favourite John Souttar has completely deteriorated in quality. The Scotland international, who will probably still get a call up for the World Cup, has been absolutely terrible this season. By far the worst he has been since joining and is responsible for many, many errors now.
He looks vulnerable. He looks well off form. We cannot quite understand why Danny Rohl sanctioned a new contract for him.
Ibrox Noise was in favour of a new deal, but only one that fit into our pay structure and did not in any way break what he was worth. We believed that Souttar was a £15,000 per week to £20,000 per week player, but no more. Possibly even less than that.
Obviously we cannot know exactly what he was offered. But the fact that he got a new contract suggests he got a wage that he was very happy with.
The curious part, though, is how poor his form actually was before he got the deal. It is even worse now.
Rangers have made a mistake here.
A Rangers level defender never emerged
John Souttar has never developed as a Rangers defender at all. He remains the mid table Hearts level stopper that he was when he signed. We will also never forget the fact that he lied when he joined the club by saying he did not have an injury.
He did admit later that he had concealed an injury. It kept him out of the team for the best part of 18 months when he joined.
So he did not start life too well.
As we said, though, despite that, he did get into the team and he started to get his way at Rangers. Ibrox Noise was a big fan of Souttar, but we expected him to evolve.
When you join Rangers your level has to go up. You can no longer be that mid table SPL defender that we have signed who has promise.
You have to become a Rangers level stopper.
Souttar has not.
He simply remained at the level he was when we signed him and never became a Rangers level stopper.
We used to like him a lot. We have completely changed on that and John Souttar’s new contract was an error.
His form has gone to absolute misery this campaign. We have seen no sign of that improvement that we were fully anticipating happening.
Problems at the back continue
What we would do now? Well, it does not matter. We do not have a say on first team matters, only Danny Rohl does.
He did, in fairness, drop Souttar for the cup quarter final. He put Djiga in his place, who had a pretty solid match.
Rangers at the back were actually okay. It was the one part of the team that probably kind of worked overall.
Djiga is a much, much better defender than many Rangers fans have given him credit for.
The major reason Rangers fans have been so critical of Djiga is that historically he has been paired with players he cannot play with.
He cannot play alongside Souttar, who is, of course, having a terrible season so we hope that clears a bit of that up.
But of course Fernandez as well is not a good foil for Djiga. They managed yesterday, just about, to carry it off, but nevertheless the two of them do not really play together. But Souttar came on later in the match and made what was already not spectacular but okay a heck of a lot worse.
He nearly cost Rangers a goal or two and was abysmal. He has been abysmal the whole season. Unfortunately Rangers are now tied to him for at least another year and a half.
John Souttar’s new contract was another bum move.