Rangers winger Jake Hastie is clearly not in Steven Gerrard’s plans for the upcoming season after he turned out once again for the B team on Tuesday.
There were high hopes for Hastie when he was snapped up by the Gers in the summer of 2019 following a strong end to the 2018/19 campaign at Motherwell.
However, the Scotland youth cap didn’t impress in either of his two early 2019/20 appearances and hasn’t had a look in since.
Loan spells at Rotherham United and Motherwell followed but he was unable to find consistency at either club.
This pre-season looked like it might be last chance saloon in terms of salvaging his Rangers career, but it appears that he’s not even going to get a chance in any of the first team’s five pre-season friendlies.
Hastie played in the B team’s first warm-up match against Edinburgh City on Saturday afternoon and while that didn’t look great given that no other first-team players were involved, there was a chance that he was simply being given a head start on others in terms of game time.
However, he was then overlooked completely for Monday’s first-team game against Partick Thistle, despite a number of other fringe players receiving game time.
With even 18-year-old midfielder Alex Lowry getting a spot on the bench ahead of him, it seemed possible that injury had ruled him out of contention.
Yet, on Tuesday night, he was selected for the B team’s fixture against Albion Rovers at Auchenhowie, making it clear that he’s simply out of the first-team picture right now.
In theory, as he is contracted until 2023, he still has time to turn things around at Rangers.
However, with even the likes of Jordan Jones and Glenn Middleton seemingly now well ahead of him in the pecking order, an exit before the end of the window looks more likely than the 22-year-old ever making a third senior appearance for the Light Blues.
Hastie did at least bag an assist against Albion Rovers, and a teenager scored the decisive goal just 24 hours after being given a taste of first-team life by Gerrard.