PATTERSON HAS TO BE SQUEAKY CLEAN IF HE’S TO REGAIN THE TRUST OF GERRARD
HAD things panned out differently, Nathan Patterson would have been at Ibrox yesterday afternoon savouring the proudest moment of his young career thus far.
The 19-year-old has yet to make his full league debut for Rangers. But, almost certainly, that would have changed in the 4-1 win over Dundee United.
Patterson would have been handed his first league start for his boyhood club in the absence of skipper James Tavernier.
Instead, he was probably sat at home. Maybe watching a boxset on Netflix. Or playing video games. Or reading a book. Just anything to try to take his mind off it all.
Patterson is a young man who must be feeling an enormous sense of embarrassment and regret right now.
When Tavernier went down injured in the Europa League win in Antwerp last Thursday, that should have been his big chance.
Tavernier has been outstanding all season and, from the minute Steven Gerrard arrived at Rangers, he has barely missed a game. He is so rarely injured.
Patterson is the heir apparent at right-back. He should have been bombing up and down the right wing at Ibrox yesterday and showing everyone how good he is.
But, when his big chance arrived, he was posted missing. Plainly, he only has himself to blame for that and he must now deal with the consequences.
Patterson is no more guilty than any of the other Rangers players alongside whom he breached Covid rules by going to a house party last weekend: Bongani Zungu, Calvin Bassey, Dapo Mebude and Brian Kinnear.
Collectively, they should hang their heads in shame for what has been a display of utter stupidity and arrogance.
But it’s only natural that the spotlight will eventually fall on Patterson. Of course it will. He’s the young man who apparently is destined for big things in the game.
There is also the timing of all of this. For Patterson, it could not have been any worse. It may well prove to be a sliding doors moment in the fullness of time.
All the noises coming out of Rangers over the past year or so have been resoundingly positive around the young right-back.
Gerrard has spoken in glowing terms about him on several occasions and the club have tied him down on a long-term deal until 2024. Right now, however, there will be nothing but silence.
I don’t believe Gerrard will contact Patterson throughout his period of self-isolation.
Instead, he will let the young man stew over it all and hopefully realise the gravity of his mistake. Because, truthfully, it’s actually a blessing he got caught.
Let’s suppose the police hadn’t broken up the party and that the night passed off without incident for Patterson and the rest of the players.
The next morning, they make their way into training and their manager is none the wiser as to what they’ve been up to the previous night.
If any of them had caught
Covid, they could then have been taking it into the club’s facilities, potentially infecting half the squad, and plunging their whole season into chaos.
So it was actually a blessing they got caught.
I know it won’t feel like that right now for Patterson, but he needs to learn a big lesson from this.
I’m not one of these who believe he should never play for the club again. I believe he will play for Rangers again, but it’s a long way back from here to regain Gerrard’s trust.
The important thing is that they all realise football is only part of the equation here. There’s a public health issue in all of this and they have blatantly disrespected the whole thing.
Young players going out to parties is nothing new. I did it myself. I remember stories of how Sir Alex Ferguson used to turn up unannounced and drag Ryan Giggs and Lee Sharpe out by their ear at silly o’clock in the morning.
But, in those days, we weren’t in the middle of a global pandemic. You just can’t be doing these kind of things — and the sooner players realise it, the better.
We’ve all had to make huge sacrifices over the past year. Not going out and socialising has been one of them. Players aren’t exempt from that.
Patterson would have been waiting patiently for his chance to finally step up and get a run of games, which he would have done in Tavernier’s absence.
Depending on the severity of the injury to the skipper, Patterson could potentially have played right-back for Rangers from now until the end of the season.
When he does eventually get back in the door, he needs to be squeaky clean and regain the trust of his manager.
As for Gerrard, he probably can’t believe this has happened so soon again after what happened with Jordan Jones and George Edmundson.
If the message doesn’t get through now, it never will.