Rangers midfielder John Lundstram might be eyeing a new contract at Ibrox, but if the club are serious about handing him it someone needs a temperature check in Govan.
Save for a purple patch in the Europa League run, where early analysis of Big Bad John as the “best on Earth” was decidedly short-lived, the signing has been expensive and underwhelming.
The Gers reportedly pay the midfielder around £1.15m a year, or £22k per week [Salary Sport], to make him one of the club’s most well paid players.
Signed on a free when his contract expired in in the summer of 2021, alongside Fashion Sakala, John Lundstram was Steven Gerrard’s only major business of the post-55 window.
It has proved a disastrous piece of mismanagement at the top of Rangers as the club’s arrogance came back to the bite them and now they face an expensive rebuilding job whilst facing up to the reality of a substantial gap between the club and Celtic on and off the park.
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But it’s not just in the inflated contract or in the penny pinching transfer symbolism where John Lundstram has been a huge let-down at Ibrox; it’s most importantly on the park.
John Lundstram isn’t doing enough for new Rangers contract
The midfielder started his Ibrox career with a whimper, Rangers fans immediately failing to take to a player who struggled with the intensity of the Scottish game and who, more often than not, sought to play it safe.
The less said about that red card against Alashkert, the better.
Despite the expensive wages, John Lundstram found himself out of the Rangers team and it wasn’t until that Europa League Final run that his Ibrox redemption somewhat begun.
But aside from those influential European performances, where Giovanni van Bronckhorst employed him as a deep-lying, dynamic midfielder who’d double as a centre-back in a back three, John Lundstram has offered little and his presence as a regular has contributed to our domestic downturn.
Rangers are a shambles across the park and quite simply, need better than the former Everton youth midfielder who increasingly talks a good game but struggles to deliver.
Another abysmal display in the latest defeat to Aberdeen has contributed to squad-wide frustration and we’re seeing nothing from the player to suggest he deserves to be part of the team going forward, let alone beyond next season.
John Lundstram was decidedly feisty when asked about a new contract by fan media, but we all know exactly why. And deep down, we’re beginning to think he does too.
We’d love nothing more than John to prove us wrong, but as is becoming patently clear with so many in this squad, change is required.