MURPHY THE LOAN RANGER
Winger will f ly to Florida and join his new team-mates after deal is repackaged at the eleventh hour
JAMIE MURPHY will fly out to Florida this morning as a Rangers player after the transfer from Brighton to his boyhood team was finally repackaged as a loan deal.
The 28-year-old winger had passed a medical and was expected to travel to the United States yesterday for a winter training camp and Florida Cup games.
However, Murphy surprisingly wasn’t part of Graeme Murty’s squad when they jetted out from Edinburgh.
And it can be revealed that Brighton were intent on being sticklers for due diligence on the ability of Rangers to be good for a fee which was set to feature a down payment then future instalments to reach £2million.
While the figure was agreed between clubs to clear Murphy to travel to Glasgow and strike a deal on a three-and-a-half-year contract, Brighton’s legal team sought assurances about Rangers finances before signing off a permanent deal in this window.
That £2m switch is expected to happen in the summer but, for now, Brighton wanted to advance only on a temporary basis.
It is unclear whether the stance by the English Premier League newcomers related specifically to concerns about the overall financial picture at Rangers.
But it did result in a false start to Murphy’s Rangers career. He will be a late arrival to the Ibrox club’s Tampa base ahead of games against Atletico Mineiro and Corinthians.
THE early weeks of a new year have traditionally been associated with new beginnings for Ross McCrorie. Not that he always appreciated them when those fresh starts involved being punted out on loan by Mark Warburton and, he suspected, pushed him further away from his dream of ever representing Rangers at first-team level.
In February 2016 he was shipped away to League One with Ayr United then, when McCrorie neither fancied nor expected it, last January presented him with the opportunity to scrap against relegation with part-time Dumbarton in the Ladbrokes Championship.
‘I don’t think Mark fancied me, really, when he was here,’ recalled McCrorie. ‘But I respected his opinion. He felt I wasn’t ready and he was probably right. I don’t think I was ready at that particular time. But there was a fear when I went to Dumbarton that I might not come back to Rangers.
‘I worried that I might not get a chance here after that. Of course, I had to believe. But there’s always a wee bit of doubt at the back of your mind — am I ever going to get this chance to get into the first team at Rangers?’
McCrorie can recount the tale with relish now because, 12 months on from a posting to Dumbarton, which he credits with bringing on bundles of improvement, he is very much in the Rangers first team at the age of 19. A vital cog, in fact, of a midfield revamped by his former Under-20s coach Graeme Murty and on a newly signed, extended contract until 2022.
This January, he has a winter break camp in Florida to look forward to before returning to the task of keeping Rangers competitive with Aberdeen for the runners-up berth in the Ladbrokes Premiership and tackling a William Hill Scottish Cup campaign. All while his admirers can hazard guesses at when he will make a Scotland debut.
Last January, a call from his ex-development squad manager Ian Durrant, only just appointed as assistant manager to Stevie Aitken at Dumbarton, paved the way for the switch that initially left him underwhelmed and pitched him into a debut against Raith Rovers at Kirkcaldy.
‘It was unexpected and I wasn’t sure about another loan move,’ admitted McCrorie.
‘I’d been at Ayr the year before. I was a bit disappointed about having to go back out on loan because I was so desperate to get a chance at Rangers. I felt a bit left out.
‘I would make the odd first-team squad or get on the bench without really getting a break. But I knew I had to keep working hard in the hope I’d get a chance eventually. Going somewhere like Dumbarton is an eye-opener at first. But it’s a great club and they made me feel so welcome.
‘It wasn’t too bad but it made me appreciate what we have at Rangers. We don’t know how lucky we are when it comes to facilities. In a playing sense, I learned about game management. We were at the lower end of the Championship, playing against teams who were better than us. Even things like seeing games out, wasting time, you learn about how to manage that.
‘Durranty had seen me playing midfield for Rangers Under-17s and then at Ayr, so he knew I could do a job in there. He was more of an attacking midfielder. It really helped having Durranty there and the Dumbarton loan made me come on in leaps and bounds. Going there made me a much better player.
‘There were a lot of ex-Rangers boys at Dumbarton at that time, boys like Tom Lang, Calum Gallagher, Tom Walsh. I was thinking: “They’ve been at Rangers and haven’t quite made the grade”. I just didn’t want to be like that and it made me push even harder. I just wanted to be different from them and make the most of my chance.’
The influence of Durrant, binned by Warburton the previous summer before Murty was brought on board, has been critical for McCrorie’s positive mindset throughout his determined push for promotion through the ranks. Durrant clearly recognised how big a talent Rangers had on their books. He just had to make McCrorie realise it.
‘When I went out on loan to Ayr, he told me that I would make it,’ revealed McCrorie. ‘He assured me that if I kept working hard, then I’d make it. That gave me great belief. It was a huge confidence boost. Ian Durrant is a Rangers legend, so I took his word for it.
‘When I was in the Under-17s, he moved me up to the 20s. In my first years with the 20s, he made me captain. So he had quite a bit of confidence in me. He helped my game, showing my different areas where I could improve.
‘He took me under his wing when I was one of the younger ones in the Under-20s. I knew he had seen something in me when he took me aside for chats.’
With McCrorie in the team for nine Championship games, Dumbarton lost only once as they avoided the play-off slot that claimed Raith for relegation by goal difference. He returned to Rangers ‘a far better player’ for consideration by Pedro Caixinha.
The Portuguese boss possesses no Rangers legacy to be proud of but handing McCrorie a debut when Bruno Alves was injured at Partick Thistle in September won’t ever be forgotten by the lifelong Ibrox supporter.
Of course, an outlandish statement followed in true Caixinha fashion. Yet among the proliferation of pronouncements as manager that attracted criticism, his one that McCrorie ‘can become one of the greatest centre-halves in Scottish history’ might not be as preposterous as first feared.
‘I had still been training back at Rangers while at Dumbarton because they’re part-time, so I think he might have seen something there,’ said McCrorie.
‘But I don’t think he’d watched me all that much. I just think I came back a far better player thanks to the games at Dumbarton.
‘Then, for the first time, I did pre-season with the first team and played games. I’m thankful to Pedro for giving me the chance. I kept working, trying to improve my game every day.
‘I’ve been playing ever since he gave me that opportunity, so it’s all worked out well in the end.’
‘I don’t think Warburton fancied me. There was a fear when I went on loan to Dumbarton that I might not come back. There were a lot of ex-Rangers boys there and I just wanted to be different from them’ — ROSS McCRORIE By Fraser Mackie
Ian Durrant told me that I would make it. That boosted my confidence