Show Rangers you’re worth a million,Daly urges Walker
EARTS caretaker boss Jon Daly has challenged Jamie Walker to gun down Rangers tomorrow and seal a £1million move to Ibrox. The attacker has been the subject of several bids by Pedro Caixinha this summer — but the Tynecastle club insist they won’t let him go for less than a million. Shortly before he was sacked, previous head coach Ian Cathro left Walker out of his squad against Dunfermline only to see the Gorgie men crash out of the Betfred Cup at the group stage. Cathro insisted at the time that the 24-year-old was not in the right frame of mind amid speculation about his future in Edinburgh. Replacement Daly also admitted that Walker’s ‘head had been turned’ by interest from Ibrox but he is confident that the player — out of contract next summer — is ready to perform in the Premiership clash in Govan. A former Rangers striker, Daly challenged Walker to prove to the Glasgow giants he is worth the big money it will take to lure him along the M8. ‘He’s playing against a club who are interested in him,’ said Daly, 34. ‘And to show them he is worth what we value him at, he needs to perform. ‘Jamie is in the shop window, the window is still open and until that window shuts he remains our player. ‘Will a shop-window situation bring the best out of Jamie Walker? We’re hopeful he will go out and put on the kind of performance he is more than capable of. ‘Nothing has changed. There was a bid that was rejected due to it not being the amount we require, so the situation is still the same. ‘And it will remain the same until we get a bid of the required amount. ‘Is his head right now? Yeah, it unsettled him initially, as is understandable when a club the size of Rangers makes a bid. But he’s focused now, we have had a couple of chats with him about what we expect of him and what we need him to do. ‘He has done everything we have asked of him in training. ‘He has put himself back in with a chance of playing against Rangers — and I think it’s a game he is looking forward to playing in.’ Daly is also set to unleash Isma Goncalves at Ibrox tomorrow after the striker saw his red card overturned from last week’s victory over Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. The Portuguese had his hair pulled by Kirk Broadfoot and was adjudged to have elbowed the Killie defender in retaliation, but the Tynecastle side won their appeal yesterday. And there was a further boost when midfielder Don Cowie signed a contract extension, keeping him at Tynecastle until 2019. ‘I’m delighted about Isma,’ said Daly. ‘He has scored two in his last two games and is a big player. He is a handful up front and now we are looking to play him on Saturday. I don’t think he retaliated. ‘For me, retaliation is throwing your arm back with vengeance and malice. I don’t think Isma did that. ‘He tried to push someone off him, as you would do if your hair was being pulled. ‘Will he get his hair cut after last weekend’s incident? ‘I think Isma likes his hair the way it is.’ Daly admits he has fond memories of his two-year spell at Rangers from 2013 onwards, until the arrival of Mark Warburton sealed his exit in 2015. He will forever be in former
PEDRo CAIXINHA last night admitted that he is training his Rangers players to deal with bad refereeing decisions. Ibrox midfielder Ryan Jack yesterday became one of
three Premiership players to win appeals against red cards administered last weekend. Unhappy with the performance of referee John Beaton during his team’s 3-2 defeat to Hibernian last weekend, Caixinha admitted his players could have avoided the sending-off drama which helped swing the game in the visitors’ favour if they had kept a better check on their temper. And now the Rangers manager has thrown a few contentious calls into his team’s practice matches in order to emphasise his message. ‘For my players, I can try to get them to control the emotional balance,’ said Caixinha. ‘Sometimes we will take a bad refereeing decision here in the training session to make them understand that things are going in that direction and might happen. ‘That’s the only way you can train in those circumstances and allow the players to be focused on the tasks. ‘That’s what we did with part