Some Rangers fans have railed against what they view as “pathetic” coverage of new striker Cedric Itten by a leading Scottish newspaper.
The Scottish Sun ran a peculiar story claiming that Cedric Itten, 23, was handed his Switzerland debut by “accident” by coach Vladimir Petkovic before becoming an integral part of his plans.
However, Rangers fans have pointed out that Petkovic said nothing of the sort and are angry at what they see as needlessly negative coverage.
Here’s what the Switzerland boss is alleged to have said:
“When I called up Cedric Itten, it was really only to give him a taste of the international football experience, I wasn’t going to play him.
“But what happened was the day before the game, Remo Freuler got injured in training and that meant there was a space on the bench for him.
“We actually had quite a few injuries for the game against Georgia.
“And Remo’s bad luck became Cedric’s good fortune.
“I had only seen him for a couple of days in training, but I immediately liked what I saw.
“We had played 71 minutes and we could not break down the Georgians, so I decided to take a chance and send on Cedric.
“And of course what happened? He scored a goal of immense importance a few minutes later!
“This is a boy with a lot of quality.
“It was an important first step for him and the signal to me that he could comfortably make the step-up to international football.
“And he proved that a few days later when he scored two further goals against Gibraltar.
“He’s a player who fits into our team’s attacking qualities. He needed a bit of luck, but he’s taken his opportunity and he’s in the squad on merit.”
This is all incredibly positive stuff from Petkovic and by the looks of things, the Bosnian-born manager cannot sing Itten’s praises highly enough.
But the Scottish Sun appear to have spun the story to take the shine off the comments and make the striker out to be a bit of a donkey.
The Rangers support are wise to it however, and have been giving the Scottish newspaper an earful on Twitter
https://twitter.com/Liamj1Lj/status/1291116285506596866
https://twitter.com/MobRoolz/status/1290980088201256965
https://twitter.com/Active_ProQ/status/1290986264959881217
This negative Itten story comes just days after the Scottish Sun claimed Florian Kamberi turned down Rangers to sign for FC St. Gallen.
This was vehemently rebuffed by club insiders Heart & Hand and was days before former St. Gallen talisman Itten signed for Rangers.
