Gers gaffer’s delight after ‘outstanding’ Barisic show

Steven Gerrard believes Borna Barisic’s Rangers career should go from strength to strength following his “outstanding” performance against Feyenoord on Thursday night.

The Croatia defender signed for the Ibrox club on a four-year-deal for a reported fee of £2.2 million in 2018 after impressing for NK Osijek against the Light Blues in the Europa League qualifiers.

Barisic, though, struggled to make the left-back position his own with rightback Jon Flanagan and midfielder Andy Halliday often preferred.

However, Gerrard and the Rangers fans were more than happy with Barisic’s display in the 1-0 Europa League win over the Dutch side at Ibrox, after he had returned to the defence along with Filip Helander and set up Sheyi Ojo for the only goal of the game.

Ahead of the trip to St Johnstone in the Ladbrokes Premiership on Sunday, Gerrard praised his player.

“Borna is the Croatia left-back so he would have played in those pressure games against that level of opponent,” he said.

“He is a top player. We brought Borna in here for a reason, we feel he can contribute a lot from left-back.

“I thought his performance was outstanding last night and that should give him a lot of belief and confidence to build on that.”

Gerrard is unhappy with the 12.15pm start time at McDiarmid Park after the 8pm kick-off against Feyenoord.

The former Liverpool and England captain, who will make changes to his side for the trip to Perth, said: “We are not complaining, it is the way it is.

“But certainly for us and Celtic, you would like to think that our own league would help us in terms of kick-off times but they go the other way and make them earlier and they give you morning kick-offs.”

Picture: SNS. Sheyi Ojo and Borna Barisic during the Feyenoord clash.