So John Souttar returns to Rangers after the World Cup endeavours. He did not play under Steve Clarke’s diabolical Scotland regime, who now, of course, has departed these shores for pastures new. Good riddance, we say.
Scotland frustrations aside
Clarke was an absolutely horrible Scotland manager who got very lucky with a bunch of FIFA and UEFA back doors. They allowed him to scrape his Scotland team into championships they had no business being in. We are sure no one failed to notice how utterly diabolical Scotland were in every single championship that Clarke took the country to. Hopeless. Completely hopeless.
But that is not the topic for today. Instead, it is the return of Souttar.
Mismanaged under previous bosses
We have high hopes for Souttar. We think he is a much better defender than many fans think, but he was painfully mismanaged under both Russell Martin and Danny Rohl.
Under Russell Martin, the former manager paired him alongside Nasser Djiga on the left hand side. Neither player could play with each other, and the weakness of that defence was exposed over and over again.
Souttar definitely requires a left footer. He needs someone who can complement his style. And that sure as heck was not Emmanuel Fernandez, who has a very similar style to John Souttar. Both defenders are big and strong and good in the air. There is no composure or foil for each other. It is a very poor pairing, and that is why it did not work under Danny Rohl either. That was despite many claims that it was doing so at a certain point in the season.
A fresh chance under McInnes
But Souttar is back now, and he is under a manager who actually knows what Scottish football is all about. He also knows what Rangers are all about. This is a chance for a rebirth of John Souttar as a much, much better defender than he has indeed been.
The fact is he has not developed as a Rangers defender. There is no question about that. But, of course, he was signed under Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s reign and was injured for the best part of 2 years before he actually started to play. By then, all the slop managers had taken over at Rangers and did not have a clue how to manage this club.
Time to prove himself
We are free of that now. You could argue Souttar has actually missed years of development under a proper manager who knows what he is doing.
This is a brand new start for John Souttar. He is a solid, reliable and decent defender who has been mismanaged time and time again by hapless coaches who did not have a clue what they were doing.
He gets the same tabula rasa as everybody else, and we have high expectations for him. Of course, we are sure McInnes will understand about Souttar. He might even not want to use him. We could not possibly judge.
All we know is Souttar will get the same chance as everybody else. There is potential there for the real John Souttar to finally stand up in a Rangers shirt.