SUMMER signings Eros Grezda, Borna Barisic and Kyle Lafferty appear to have played their last matches for Rangers after a withering dressing down from Steven Gerrard in the wake of Tuesday’s controversial bounce match against a Liverpool Under-23 side.
Twenty-four-year-old Albanian winger Grezda and his former Osijek team-mate Barisic, a full Croatia internationalist, were signed at a combined cost of £3.5m last summer. Both have three years remaining on their current deals while Lafferty, picked up for around £450,000 from Hearts during the summer, still has a year left. Grezda, Lafferty, Barisic and on-loan Lassana Coulibaly were all withdrawn at half-time in the closed-door match, which saw the experienced Rangers side trailing 4-0 to the Anfield kids.
While the arrival of three prospects from the club’s successful Scottish Youth Cup-winning side, Daniel Finlayson, Dapo Mebude and Josh McPake saw them salvage a 4-4 draw, Gerrard wasn’t happy. Question marks remain also about the futures of Gareth McAuley, who has one year remaining on the two-year deal he agreed at the start of the season, and Graeme Dorrans, who is recovering from a lengthy injury lay-off.
Gerrard admitted the display had confirmed some of his worst fears about certain members of his squad. “I already knew about them before the game,” he said “But sometimes it takes a game like that to confirm that certain people don’t fancy this challenge. They don’t want to come along with me. So it’s pretty easy to work out who you trust and who you want around you. You realise who’s going to give you a better chance of success moving forward.”
Asked specifically about Grezda and Barisic, he said: “I’m not here to speak about individual players but I’ve already spoken about them a while ago. Have I seen anything in the interim to show me they’ve taken it on board? Well, one’s been injured but have they played in the starting 11? Not much, so that’s the answer to your question. Unfortunately, there were a lot of players when I came into the club who were holding Rangers back. And there’s still some around. At the right time, I’ll address that.”
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