Joshua Barrie, sometimes seen on Sky Sports, is expecting Ryan Kent to start for Rangers on Saturday.
That is despite the winger coming in for criticism in recent weeks due to his poor performances.
Journalist Mark Guidi went in on the 25-year-old just last week when discussing pressure on the manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst. Guidi labelled the former Liverpool man a “passenger” and insisted he wouldn’t have him in the team.
The £15.75m-rated dynamo grabbed his fifth assist in the disappointing draw with Livingston last week and Barrie believes he just can’t be left out no matter how he’s performing.
Speaking on the Rangers Review morning briefing on Friday he said:
(23:27) “I’d be interested to see if the manager could try something different with his positioning.”
“When the tempo’s slow, I think that’s a big factor as well, it’s very different for Kent if he’s receiving the ball in space and the defence is unorganised compared to the ball going over to him slowly, he receives the ball deep and he has to beat two men.
“I think he will start tomorrow. But as I say at times as much as his form hasn’t been good there also I think is such an emphasis on him to provide something which he eventually did for Rangers in the last couple of minutes to put that on a plate for Lundstram.”
TIF Thoughts on Barrie’s comments…
With his contract expiring at the end of the season you could be forgiven for thinking that Kent’s head isn’t in it at Ibrox.
But if you were to think that he had his heart set on a move elsewhere you would at least believe that he’d be performing like a man trying to put himself in the shop window.
The Oldham-born forward was anonymous against Napoli in midweek and lost possession 21 times but Barrie and supporters will be hoping he puts in a similar display to that which he showed last weekend.
His 7.8 SofaScore rating saw him rank second among his teammates against Livi and having been involved in six goals in 695 Premiership minutes his performance will have a massive bearing on the outcome of a crunch game with Aberdeen.