Alan Hutton admits he watched James Tavernier closely for the first 10 minutes against Motherwell on Sunday and noticed something wasn’t quite right with him.
As captain of an underperforming Rangers side this season, Hall of Fame inductee Tavernier receives the brunt of the criticism from frustrated fans who are fed up seeing him start week in week out.
Tavernier really struggled as soon as the semi-final against the Steelmen kicked off, so much so that Philippe Clement hooked him at half-time for Dujon Sterling.
Hutton says it is clear off-field noise is getting to Tavernier of late and it is having a negative impact on his performances for Rangers.
The pundit observed that it looked like Tavernier was carrying the weight of the world on his back and as such, he couldn’t execute the simple things well enough.
Hutton describes Tavernier’s display vs Motherwell
Speaking on Premier Sports’ The Scottish Football Social Club, Hutton said: “We’ve all played the game, you can tell when you look at his performances, things going on off the pitch is affecting him.
“I don’t care who you are, you look at social media and the newspapers, it’s definitely affecting him. I was watching him for the first 10 or 15 minutes.
“I don’t want to say I feel sorry for him because that’s not the right words, but I could tell as if he was carrying 100 kilo weights on his shoulders. He didn’t want to make any mistakes.
“He was so concentrated on what he was doing, little five yard passes, he was almost overthinking it. There was one he just put straight out the pitch and it was a five yard pass.
“And you could just tell the fans were on him. He put a deep cross in, you could hear the murmurings in the crowd. You felt for him because he does take a lot of flak.”
Scott Arfield shares his thoughts on Tavernier
Bolton Wanderers and ex-Rangers midfielder Scott Arfield also sat on the Social Club panel and shared why he thinks Tavernier is taking on more criticism than he actually deserves.
Arfield said: “I think his frustrations must be so valid because see when Dessers misses big chances, I bet you Tav feels it more than Dessers does.
“Because if he knows he doesn’t put that in and the result goes the same way, he’s the one that’s getting it and not Dessers.
“So I think he needs other players to pull him out of big moments to get that momentum back because then he can maybe escape criticism for a week or two and get back to what he was.”
