TWO INTO WIN CAN BE WAY AHEAD
Never mind Colak replacing Alfie, they could form a lethal strikeforce
With Antonio Colak now finally in place to start his Rangers career, I hope the club have secured a striker approaching the peak of his powers.
I was 28 – the age the former PAOK man is now – when I signed for Rangers for the second time in 2008.
Everyone’s different but you like to think as a centre forward you’re coming into those two, three, maybe five prime years depending on how you look after yourself.
And I wish for Alfredo Morelos to stick around and push Colak to hit those heights for every year the Croatian is at Rangers.
I’d love to see the pair of them drive each other on and for Kemar Roofe to be fully fit to provide even more competition.
But, for the moment, we don’t know if Colak’s arrival is as a replacement for Alfredo or to work with him.
The Ibrox hierarchy clearly felt this guy was more than capable of carrying the weight of that jersey.
After watching a bit of him, he looks a well- rounded centre forward who’ ll adapt to any situation or whatever the role demands.
He looks equipped. Sure, he has been on a lot of loans from Hoffenheim back in Germany and struggled for goals in Greece.
But he had great seasons with Rijeka and the loan at Malmo. He’s sampled different European leagues – that’s good experience – and he has a decent number of games under his belt.
At 28, I felt comfortable with the player I was and pretty clear on the role. I probably went on to play a lot of my best football for Rangers at that time, although I’d had a right good spell at Wolves a few years earlier.
At that age, I felt I’d developed a great understanding of the role and my team-mates – working out what their strengths were, what they expected of me, having that connection.
It felt easy with guys like Barry Ferguson, Pedro Mendes, Stevie Naismith, Steven Davis and Kris Boyd round about me.
Me and Boydy’s game matched up. In layman’s terms, Boydy was the scorer and I was the worker or linker.
Then when Nikica Jelavic arrived in 2010, either of us could do pretty much any part of the job. When one was doing one then one could do the other.
So, you never know, if Morelos and Colak are that good they’ll maybe both fight their way into the team.
Sometimes if you have two players at a high level you’ve got to find a way to get them in.
It was unfortunate Nikica got a bad injury in October that season because we formed a really productive partnership. I scored 10 league goals in the first six games, an incredible start to the season.
When I watched Colak play against Rangers, he was mobile and, as we know to our cost in the Champions League qualifier at Ibrox, a real goal threat.
His movement and finishing were excellent. He links the game well, there’s physicality.
This incoming t ransfer rumbled on for a few weeks. Alfredo leaving has rumbled on for five years!
I’d like to see my former teammate stay – he’s a big player for the team and comfortable in the Rangers environment.
Rangers have to win every week. The pressure falls on YOUR shoulders as the main striker to secure a lot of these wins.
Can Rangers come to an
Sometimes if you have two players at a high level, you have to find a way to get them in side
agreement with Alfredo to get him signed for longer, allowing owing them to demand a higherr fee at some point?
How will he react to Giovanni ovanni van Bronckhorst signing a new striker? It looks like hee has handled that well over the years.
They’ve got to have gauged auged what Alfredo’s thoughtsts are. Particularly in Europe, since Steven Gerrard came in, Morelos has hit huge numberss and produced top performances. ces.
This season he could stillll help navigate a way throughgh the Champions League qualifiers. fiers.
If he’s fit and firing, cominging off quite a serious injury, thenhen he could have a big part to play in those games.
And if he can help Rangers gers secure the group stage riches hes then it’s been worthwhile ile hanging on to him.
He might even move on after that but I’d rather he stayed. What does it all mean for Roofe? It’s competition.
His goal ratio is about one in two. It was 17 in 36 appearances last season,
18 in 36 the year before. So that’s pretty similar to AlfredoA and he’s not started as m many games as him due to injurie injuries.
We’ve two decen decent scorers there. But you’re always alway looking for something diffedifferent to push people on to get b better. Towards the end of last season, with theth number of massive games RangersR went into without a recorecognised striker, this situation neededneed addressed. There’s been a few striker misfits in years gonego by. There’s never any guarantee.guaran
You can do alall the work and due diligence perfectly well, figure that a player has got all the attributesatt needed and the right character to deadeal with being at RanRangers.
YYou can tick all ththe boxes and it sstill might not wwork . Mor e fifirepower was rerequired and, ththrough Ross WWilson and the recrurecruitment team’s work in recent years, I trust them that they’vethey landed the right man.