OPINION
Rangers’ season is basically over after crashing out of the Scottish Cup and falling 10 points behind Celtic in the race for the Scottish Premiership title, so Steven Gerrard needs to seriously assess the future of his first team players.
One of the senior mainstays who has not been up to scratch in recent weeks is Daniel Candeias, who could do with being dropped from the starting line-up thanks to a series of underwhelming performances.
Gerrard’s issue is that Rangers are hardly blessed with options on the right-wing and Candeias has hardly had his first team spot threatened all season.
And that is why the Gers boss needs to unleash 17-year-old Josh McPake in the final weeks of the campaign.
McPake has been in stellar form for Rangers’ youth sides lately and he has already been allowed the chance to train with the senior squad amid his impressive displays.
The right-winger has a really good eye for goal and his pace and dribbling can cause any defenders issues if he is playing to his full ability.
The Scotland youth international has bags of potential and he is bound to break into the Light Blues senior squad some day in the future, so why not now before this season ends?
Rangers are not fighting for trophies now, they are just fighting to keep hold of second spot in the Scottish Premiership, and swapping out-of-form Candeias for an in-form youngster like McPake is hardly going to have any kind of negative impact.
It will be a lift for the fans who will be reminded that there are some very good youth prospects at Auchenhowie, and it could also help galvanise the team’s stuttering form.
McPake is not the only great young player making waves in the youth team, but he is without doubt one of the best and the fact that Candeias has been so boring to watch at time this term, means that the never-before seen ace, who is yet to make a first team appearance, has to be promoted to the senior squad before too long.