Progress is painful for Rossiter with no signs of a return to the fray
GRAEME MURTY knows plenty about the agonies of an extended spell on the sidelines. His final two seasons as a player were ravaged by injuries. He then spent a gruelling year-and-a-half recovering from a dislocated ankle and regaining fitness, only to concede to retirement.
Yet that decision was made at the age of 37 after 437 appearances in the professional game. The Rangers manager cannot imagine the torture associated with being 20 years old, barely having played for 18 months and possessing little indication as to when your career might be allowed to resume.
Murty witnesses all this when he checks in on Jordan Rossiter and his heart goes out to the luckless midfielder.
Rossiter was an exciting, inventive capture by Rangers in the summer of 2016, when Mark Warburton took advantage of cross-border transfer rules to tempt England’s Under-19 captain away from Liverpool on the cheap. From a close season playing for his country in the European Championships in Germany, Rossiter arrived with a mighty reputation.
He was meant to make Rangers millions in a few years.
However, Rossiter managed just six appearances last term and wasn’t sighted after August. This season’s comeback lasted four outings. Nine minutes as a substitute in Dingwall four months ago was his most recent exposure to first-team action.
Bulletins from Warburton, then Pedro Caixinha, occasionally suggested the root of the problem causing all his calf and hamstring problems had been discovered, that Rossiter was ready to return and stamp his undoubted class on Rangers.
Murty would love to be able to make such a forecast but he wants to believe in it first and, more importantly, alleviate any further pressure Rossiter and his lower back are feeling while he is being nursed tentatively along.
‘Jordan is going through a hard time — physically and psychologically,’ said Murty. ‘He’s getting fantastic support. Our medical staff are taking really, really good care of him. What we want to do is take away any performance anxiety or any other stresses that he has so that he keeps his focus on getting his body right and making sure he can maximise his potential.
‘Part of the way to do that is to take away time limits, take away restrictions on it. And just make sure that holistically you look at everything in his life and around him that can put him in a positive
It’s difficult for the staff to help keep him upbeat. Jordan is going through such a hard time
place. We are not sure where we are time-wise. We were looking at Jordan progressing. He’s not progressing as fast as we would like or, I’m sure, he would like.
‘Right now if you give, say, Kenny Miller a timeline: You’re going to be out “X” length of time, Kenny would do everything he can do to chase that down because that’s his psyche. Because Jordan has had a harder time of it over the last couple of years, putting that time or that date in the forefront of his mind might lead him to fixate on that rather than listening to his body. And we just want him to get his body right. And when he gets his body right, then we will see him play.’
From the limited time Murty spent working with Rossiter, during an Under-20s training camp and tournament in Nuneaton last July, any prospect of his injury issues clearing up soon is a tantalising one now he is managing the first team. ‘I am hopeful for him, hopeful that we can get him right because, if we do, then we’ve got a really, really good asset,’ said Murty. ‘Look at where he’s come from and where he’s been already. He passes the ball brilliantly and has a fantastic pedigree. ‘The way he deals with the football, the way he passes the football is just different to anyone else. When you see it close, the sound he makes when passing a simple side-foot ball is different. There’s just a resonance to it that’s great. Honestly. ‘Similar to a golf shot making that wonderful sound when the pros hit it. Yet sounds totally different when we clang it down the fairway, slap it a bit. It’s like that. That sound, that resonance he has when he hits through it. I want him to have that in the forefront of his mind. That feeling of: That’s what I want. We need to get him there and actually get him feeling the pleasure of playing football again.’
Rangers called on help from the Football Association medics at England’s St George’s Park base and have been eager for Rossiter to explore avenues beyond their own Auchenhowie training centre in the search for both remedy and incentive in his battle.
‘Having been injured for 18 months myself, the monotony of it, the grind of it and the fact that it never changes can really wear you down,’ stated Murty.
‘So we need to make sure we give him a variety of stimulus to actually physically and psychologically take care of him as well as possible.
‘Part of our care programme is being able to send him to other trusted professionals, so he can get a different stimulus from a different environment.
‘Yes, it’s difficult for the staff to help keep him upbeat. I think one of the key components is not always the same voice.
‘We’ve got two really good physios, our doc is outstanding. We have different coaching staff around him all the time.
‘We just have to make sure that when he walks in here on a morning, he’s walking into a place that can help. And he walks out of here at the end feeling as though he’s done himself good and is moving towards getting better.’