The Sunday Mail’s chief football writer Scott McDermott joined Jonny McFarlane on the latest edition of the Record Rangers podcast and the pair spent some time discussing Gers winger Brandon Barker during the show.
Since moving to Ibrox from Manchester City in the summer of 2019, Barker has struggled to make much of an impact for Rangers, scoring just one goal and providing no assists in his 17 appearances for the Glasgow-based club.
However, while he only made six Premiership appearances for the Gers last season, Barker has featured in four of Rangers’ six Premiership games so far in the 2020/21 campaign, with the winger starting two of those games.
During this recent edition of the Record Rangers podcast, McDermott was asked: “Do you think he’s getting minutes with a view to selling him or is he a part of the plans going forward?”
McDermott shared some optimism over the 23-year-old’s future at Ibrox in response to that question, saying: “I think at the moment, it looks as if he’s part of the plans.
“I don’t think Steven Gerrard would risk anything in these games, knowing how crucial these games are and what’s at stake, I don’t think he would play a guy just to try and get minutes in his legs so people could see him, to move him on.
“Brandon Barker’s obviously been back after lockdown and really impressed the manager, whether you like it or not.
“He came on in France in the friendly tournament, made a real impact when he came on against Lyon and we spoke to Gerrard afterwards and to be honest, he was quite dismissive of that performance.
“I think his quote was – ‘one or two cameos in friendly games isn’t going to be enough’ – so, clearly, he had doubts then about whether Barker could maintain a level of performance but we don’t see him in training, he’s clearly doing it behind closed doors and that’s resulted in him getting starts.”
Do you think that Barker is good enough to start regularly for Rangers?
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So, if McDermott’s assessment of the situation is right, then perhaps Gerrard does believe that Barker has got a future at Ibrox, despite his unimpressive first season with the club.
Hopefully, for the winger, he can start boosting his goals and assists numbers for the Gers, as if he does manage to do that, then Gerrard may find it difficult to leave him out of the squad moving forward.