OPINION
Umar Sadiq is looking more and more like Rangers’ 2018/19 version of Dalcio.
The 21-year-old striker signed on loan from Roma in the summer transfer window but is yet to get much first team action with just three appearances off the bench across all competitions.
However he may get the chance to impress on Wednesday night when Rangers welcome Scottish Championship club Ayr United to Ibrox in the quarter finals of the BetFred Cup.
Steven Gerrard is more than likely going to want to rotate his squad and with Kyle Lafferty cup-tied, Alfredo Morelos best rested with Sadiq starting up front after assistant manager Gary McAllister confirmed that some of the players involved in the reserves on Monday could play against Ayr.
Sadiq started that reserves game versus Motherwell before being taken off at half-time, so there is a good chance that he could get the nod to start when Ayr travel to Govan this week.
It should be a routine win for the Gers, but Sadiq is going to be feeling the pressure massively because he simply must perform well otherwise director of football Mark Allen should tear up his loan deal in January.
The 6ft 3in tall (transfermarkt) colossus has already had to speak out about murmurs saying that he could return to Roma in January, which is not really a good sign considering he is just a couple of months into his spell at Ibrox.
However he has been such a letdown since arriving, and is clearly nowhere near Lafferty and Morelos in terms of quality, so it really isn’t going to be worth keeping him around after January and should be struck off.
Gerrard has done well at signing young players on the whole, but Sadiq must be got rid of if he cannot perform against Ayr and replaced by a more reliable third-choice striker.