Analysis: Ianis Hagi’s return to Rangers’ XI | OneFootball

Ianis Hagi’s first start for some considerable time was heavily welcomed by Rangers fans, many of whom have lobbied for the Romanian to play a bigger role since his exile ended.

So how did he do against St Johnstone?

Rough, is the answer. The workrate was acceptable, a little bit too much jogging for our liking, but he was always looking for the passing chance and his football brain, as always, was too far ahead both of his team mates and his own body. And he kind of made an assist.

See, the reason a player with his name never really made it big in football despite some clear talent is the lack of pace that he has for a player in the 10 slot, while also trying things that his body can’t deliver.

He made quite a few passing attempts, acute ones, that his runner had no chance of getting to, even though in theory it was good vision.

He’s always been a bit like that for Rangers, one step ahead of both the opposition and his team mates, but crucially, his own ability.

While some might generously credit him with the assist at McDiarmid given his ball led to the OG amid Tavernier’s pressure, technically it was just an OG which never has an assist on it.

The biggest solution we feel, to the 10 slot, is Nedim Bajrami. He is wasted on the left and can’t do a lot of damage there. And when Oscar Cortes is fit again we feel he on the left and Cerny on the right with the Albanian central may well be Clement’s pick.

But Hagi got the call yesterday and did acceptably with it. He is no Messi, and he’s another player who has gotten better the less he’s played – this tends to be the pattern with football fans who favour a frozen out player.

He was, let’s not forget, utterly atrocious in Spain and got dropped pretty fast there, and won’t have endeared him to Clement with all his exit talk last season (which he sharply changed tack on).

But he will work hard for Rangers, mostly, and for as long as he’s at Ibrox he will be used as a tool to be deployed now and then.

Ultimately, his ball did the damage for the visitors yesterday and we’d call that a relative success.