I was released by Manchester United at 15 and I cried my eyes out. I feel like I am at a big club again and I won’t give that up easily
SAYS MATT CROOKS
MATT CROOKS burst into tears when let go by his beloved Manchester United as a teenager so, when the midfielder agreed to swap Accrington for Ibrox one year ago, the satisfaction at joining a football giant again was profound.
Yet keeping the waterworks turned off has been a challenge for Crooks during a disastrous and maddening first six months of a Rangers career that he believes requires salvaging by a loan spell away.
Having worked so hard to graft back from serious injury and played non-league football in England with Radcliffe Borough and Halifax Town before reaching Rangers, Crooks admits that considering leaving the club even on a temporary basis might be crazy. A battle of wills was waged within his own mind about that in advance of approaching manager Mark Warburton.
Crooks was far from being the most hyped of Warburton’s summer arrivals. He was, however, one of the more intriguing additions. A towering 22-year-old with a physique to be feared in either penalty box and boundless potential, there was the prospect of Crooks bringing versatility as a midfield powerhouse or a central defensive option on Rangers’ top-flight return.
Certainly, the current state of affairs is not what Crooks dreamed up when he and Josh Windass penned pre-contracts last January to move from Accrington Stanley — and their average attendance of 1,488 — to the football hotbed of Glasgow.
‘It’s not been ideal, and that’s putting it mildly,’ said Crooks. ‘I always try to think positively but it has been very hard. I’ve had harder times than this. In my first few months at Accrington, I was injured and didn’t play.
‘Is it easier because I’ve been through a period like this before? It depends what day it is, really. Sometimes it’s really frustrating and you can’t stop thinking about it. It can be difficult mentally to get through it. But, on the other hand, I know bad times don’t last. I can pick it up again.’
Crooks has seen just 99 minutes of first-team action for Rangers since being plagued by problems from an ankle injury sustained playing for Accrington against Plymouth last season. His sole start came in the Tynecastle cauldron of Robbie Neilson’s final game in charge of Hearts, lasting just over an hour as Rangers were overrun, defeated 2-0 and subjected to blistering criticism.
Warburton’s side reclaimed the runners-up berth without Crooks in December, leaving the former Huddersfield man to make the agonising conclusion that his long-term hopes at Rangers will be better served if he gave up now on helping them this season.
‘I’ve had the same disagreement with myself over and over again,’ explained Crooks, who turns 23 on January 20. ‘I don’t want this club to think I’m giving anything up. I can’t emphasise enough how honoured I feel to be here. I am in a privileged position at Rangers.
‘I was at Manchester United until I was 15 before they released me. I cried my eyes out because I’m a United fan. Moving here to Rangers felt like I was getting back to that level, in terms of the size of club.
‘But at the same time, I’ve been fully fit for two months and haven’t played. And ultimately I just want to play. It’s a dilemma about if I should just stay and stick it out. But I’ve still got three years left on my contract here, so it’s not as if time isn’t on my side.
‘I’ve had a conversation with the manager and he understands my situation. But I appreciate that it has to be right for the club and myself. We’ll see what happens in January. We can maybe re-assess things after the winter break. If that means going elsewhere, it’s something I have to do.
‘When I was at United, I took it for granted. I don’t want to do the same here, being happy to just stroll along. I need to take full advantage of this place and use it to the best of my ability. I want to be at a big club and, if I’m doing well at Rangers, it’s the best scenario for all parties.
‘But if you’re at a little club and you’re playing, you get more out of it than twiddling your thumbs at a big club. The plan would be to go away, play a lot of football, get back to being the player I was before coming back to Rangers in the summer fit and giving it a real go.’
The issues bedevilling Crooks can be traced back to last March after exiting a League Two victory for Accrington over Plymouth late in the first half. He was informed by Accrington that he would miss a fortnight with an ankle injury.
‘I went to the national facility at St George’s Park and they said the same,’ recalled Crooks. ‘But when I came back it was still niggling away. I asked for another scan and it turned out I’d a tear in my cartilage, so that needed fixed. It flared up again in America with Rangers.
‘I was supposed to be back training by then but I couldn’t. When I started training properly three weeks into the season, I got a tight hamstring. That has been playing up every now and then. I’m fine now, just not been selected. It’s a long time since I had a run of games.
‘At least here, we’ve got world-class facilities and staff. I can still do my work and get by. I’ve damaged both of my ankles in the past — reconstruction on my left one and cartilage work on right. It hasn’t had an impact on me. I strap them up every day and just get on with it.
‘The work I do here is second to none, so there are no problems on that score. Whereas when I was injured early on in my time at Accrington, we only had a council gym to use and one physio in a Portakabin. So that was slightly different to here.
‘But it’s still frustrating. I just wanted to work my way into the Rangers team and it’s not happened for me.’
While his Accrington friend Windass has gradually found favour in the face of his own intermittent injury issues, the other close-season additions designed to revamp the Rangers midfield have broken down or bombed.
Niko Kranjcar is out for the season after knee surgery, while the calamitous recruitment of Joey Barton damaged the development of Warburton’s team in their Ladbrokes Premiership comeback campaign. Fortunately, Crooks ticks the right age and attitude boxes to give hope that his signing of a four-year deal will look like very shrewd business further down the line.
‘I don’t think the Rangers fans really recognise me,’ he stated. ‘In the street, they probably just walk by not knowing who I am. I haven’t been able to show them what I can do yet. Even in the Hearts game, I wasn’t expecting to play and it didn’t work out for me.
‘That was a little chance for me but I didn’t take it. It’s up to me to change that. People say it was a tough environment for my first league start. But I should have been able to handle it.’