Fringe stars on an edge
Steven Gerrard admits some fringe players are further away from the starting XI than ever despite their thrashing of Lokomotiv Tashkent.
Rangers rounded off their training camp with a bounce game against the Uzbeki outfit yesterday with 24 players earning time over the two halves.
Allan McGregor and Alfredo Morelos were the only senior players not involved and there were chances for the likes of Greg Docherty, Brandon Barker, Jordan Jones and George Edmundson to show what they could do.
Young right - back Nathan Patterson impressed whi le Kai Kennedy and James Maxwell got 20 minutes each in the second half.
Gerrard was happy with the level of performance but admits some players just haven’t done enough in Dubai to force themselves into regular contention. He said: “The lads have worked hard during the week – it was like a mini pre-season.
“We wanted to give them a game to knock off the cobwebs before we face Stranraer next week.
“There were positives. I was more pleased with the second-half performance and shape.
“It’s funny – some people grab opportunities and some people probably push themselves further away.”
Gerrard admits he’d love to give academy graduates more game time but feels there’s still a lot of development to be done.
He added: “They’ve done themselves no harm but you can see clearly there’s still a lot of work to do.
“But we’ve had a strong week and team spirit is strong. Everyone who played has come through healthy and we’re now ready and in a better place to prepare for Stranraer.”