NEW BOY OR OLD PLOY?
Red-hot Itten is oven ready and must be unleashed against Killie
IT’S one of football’s Catch-22 situations. Managers will talk about players not being thrown in to starting line-ups because they are not match fit.
Well, how do you get match fit if you’re not playing matches?
It’s a conundrum. But that’s why gaffers get paid big bucks and the rest of us have second thoughts when we pick up those sheepskinlined slippers in the middle aisle in Aldi and reckon seven quid is a bit steep for a new pair of baffies.
If only strikers could slip into teams as smoothly as feet into those bad boys.
The match-fit puzzle is one for Kemar Roofe at Rangers right now.
The frontman has just arrived from Anderlecht after a good few weeks off. He needs time as well as games.
But it’s a different story with Cedric Itten. The Swiss striker landed in Glasgow just days after his league campaign was wrapped up at St Gallen.
He also pitched up at Ibrox hotter than the apple pie filling at McDonald’s.
Itten said cheerio to his old pals with four goals in his final game, in the 7-0 roasting of Celtic’s old chums Neuchatel Xamax.
He also notched the week before, having slotted six goals in his last four games and 23 for the season.
Itten is not undercooked like Roofe right now – he’s oven ready.
Gerrard should chuck him in this weekend against Killie.
The game is at Ibrox, not on Kilmarnock’s nightmare of a plastic pitch, but the Ayrshire side have made a habit of giving the Old Firm a headache home and away.
It’s because they have a management team that has drawn up a blueprint.
Steven Clarke’s handed his playbook over to Alex Dyer and others – such as Livingston – have now copied it.
This weekend won’t call for more of the same from Gerrard.
It will need something different, which is where Itten could come in. He has only been given a couple of cameos so far so it has been impossible to judge him.
It will take a bit of time to get used to his Ibrox surroundings, catch on to his team-mates’ thinking and get his head around the madcap world of Scottish football.
But it doesn’t take time to do the things that come naturally to him. Like sticking the ball in the back of the net.
Strikers feed on confidence and he came to this country bursting at the seams. Don’t hold him back and let him go off the boil. Itten’s recent record is a complete contrast to Alfredo Morelos’. He nabbed a couple in the win over St Mirren but even then he still looked off the pace.
A shake-up is exactly what he needs, whether it’s coming out of the side or having a partner up-top for a change.
It certainly couldn’t hurt Gers having a bash, otherwise they could be in for a rerun of the Tony Macaroni on Sunday.
Killie showed against Celtic they can do the whole backs-to-the-wall thing no bother.
And they’ve done it to Gers plenty of times in recent years.
Rugby Park has been a graveyard of title ambitions for the Light Blues while Killie have drawn on two of their last four trips to Ibrox.
No matter what happens this weekend, there will be no need to be administering any last rites at this stage of the season.
But more points getting spilled would turn up the pressure.
The problem at Livi was Rangers were too predictable.
Don’t be fooled by the 23 shots on target.
Most of them were from no-man’s land, as the supply lines from James Tavernier and Ryan Kent were blocked and Ianis Hagi seemed bewildered by everything going on around him.
It will be a similar story on Saturday, which is why a rethink is needed. Rangers will still have the same problems with Killie cutting the delivery mechanisms. But it could help having a different man to aim for, or another one for company. It might just take something out of the ordinary to nab the points – and an unknown quantity such as Itten could be the man to provide it.
Strikers feed on confidence. Don’t hold him back and let him go off the boil