Total caps 173. Total age 74. But when vets Miller & Hughes dish out stick in capital crunch it won’t be with zimmers
Sparks will fly between Kenny Miller and Aaron Hughes on Wednesday night but it won’t be their zimmer frames clashing insists Lee Hodson. The Rangers full-back can’t wait to see two of the best pros he has worked with go head to head at Tynecastle. And he’s adamant a combined age of 74 will have no bearing on the battle between his team-mates for club and country. At 37, former Newcastle and Fulham stopper Hughes – with 104 Northern Ireland caps – has defied early criticism of his arrival as Ian Cathro’s first Hearts signing. And at the same age 69- cap Scotland striker Miller is rolling back the years as the Ibrox club’s star turn this season, making it four goals in his last three games with the opener in yesterday’s 2- 0 Premiership win at Motherwell. Now they’ ll face each other in midweek as Mark Warburton’s side seek revenge for the St Andrew’s Day slaughtering they took at Tynecastle in Robbie Neilson’s last game in charge of the Jambos. Hodson, who has 19 caps for Michael O’Neill’s men, said: “Aaron is a Northern Ireland legend. I’ve learned a lot from him as a senior pro in that squad. “The career he has had, coming through as a youngster from Northern Ireland, he’s exactly the kind of guy you look up to. “Him, Jonny Evans, Gareth McAuley, Chris Brunt, guys like that who play at the top level, you aspire to have the careers they’ve had. “Aaron is still showing he has all that even at 37. I know from travelling with him in the international squad that he looks after himself. His diet is key, he does what he needs to do to get his legs going and get on that pitch week in, week out.
“A lot of people might get to that age and think that’s the end of it but Aaron has shown he’s still fighting fit and fresh. It’s a credit to him – he’s a fantastic player.
“And the battle with Kenny will be a fascinating one. He’s top quality as well.
“He still has plenty of legs in him – you don’t just see it on a Saturday, you see it day in, day out in training.
“The quality of his finishing, his movement, the intensity of his running – you don’t look at Kenny and see him as the age he is. He plays like someone in his mid-20s.
“And that comes from attitude as much as fitness. The older you get the more you need to look after yourself, make sure your diet and the things you do off the pitch are right.” Asked who he fancied to come out on top Hodson laughed: “No comment. But I’m sure if Kenny scores we’ll all be happy.
“Aaron is a top- quality defender, Kenny’s a top- quality centre-forward. He won’t need any pointers from me on how to play against Aaron.
“I’m sure they’ll have played against each other before at international or club level. He knows what he’ll have to do, he’s experienced enough.”
Picking weaknesses in Hughes’ game might be the least of Hodson’s worries, especially when Northern Ireland’s top analyst is in the opposite dugout sifting through his own.
Hearts No.2 Austin MacPhee knows all there is to know about the 25-year-old having helped O’Neill lead Northern Ireland to the last 16 of Euro 2016. And Hodson said: “His knowledge of the game is one of the best you’ll see.
“He has it all in his head, he can show you what you need to know and players respect that, irrespective of whether you’ve played the game at the top level or not.
“To start off with he was on the analysis side, going through clips of the opposition and how to exploit them – he was very hands-on with set-pieces. During the Euros and the start of this campaign he has been more hands-on with training.
“He’s an up-and- coming coach and although he’s new to it he definitely has something there to help players improve.
“I’m sure Austin has done it on us and I’m sure there’ll be clips where he thinks he can identify our weaknesses as a team. But we know how good we can be. The result will take care of itself if we play our game.”
Hodson was an unused sub when Robbie Muirhead’s double stunned Rangers on their last visit to Gorgie.
But James Tavernier was so poor at right-back in that 2- 0 defeat the former MK Dons man was given a run of starts to prove himself – and the only points Rangers have dropped since have been without him on from the first whistle.
He said: “Everyone has off days and it was just one of them the last time at Tynecastle. When they came back to Ibrox we showed what we can do.
“Hopefully we can take the momentum we have into it.
“Obviously they’re in transition right now but when teams get new managers, players are fighting for their places and trying to show the manager what they can do.
“It can go both ways – you never know what sort of reaction you are going to get from the players.”