The comparisons with Ryan Jack are not simply the result of the similar pathways that took both players to Rangers.
The Scottish Premiership giants snapped up Jack after his contract at Aberdeen ran down during the summer of 2017.
Seven years on, Connor Barron did the same.
Beyond their shared Pittodrie backgrounds, meanwhile, Jack and Barron share a very similar playing style too. Wearing the number eight shirt Jack vacated when he left Ibrox in July, Barron has gone about his business with a familiar bustling quality, aggressive off the ball and always positive with it.
Manager Philippe Clement hailed Barron again during Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Motherwell. The club’s first win at the third attempt this season.
The Scotland Under 21 international has started every one of Rangers’ games so far in 2024/25 too, Jack impressed with the way Barron has gone about his business with typical maturity and poise despite the ‘backlash’ that may come his way from less forgiving sections of the Aberdeen support.
Ryan Jack hails Connor Barron’s Rangers impact
“No doubt he’ll be going through a tough time. There’s no doubt,” Jack tells The Warm Up. “You do get the backlash but, for him, he’s got to just block that out. It’s it’s irrelevant
“He’s got to just focus on he’s at a huge club and he’s going to have a huge task. He’s come in and actually done really well his first couple of games.
“I look forward to seeing him as the season goes on.”
It should perhaps come as no surprise that Clement has thrust Barron straight into his starting XI.
Unlike many of the club’s other summer signings, Barron is a proven Premiership operator. Featuring nearly 60 times in the top-flight for Aberdeen, Clement obviously felt he would not need the same period of adaptation required for, say, Clinton Nsiala and Hamza Igamane.
The injury-enforced absence of Nicolas Raskin has also sped up Barron’s emergence as a key player, the hard-running 21-year-old immediately forming a promising partnership with Mohamed Diomande.
“They’ve obviously spent money on certain players and he was the one that started (in the opening fixtures),” Jack adds, Barron the stand-out in that 0-0 curtain-raiser with Hearts.
“He’s done well.”
Dynamo Kiev battle looming in European qualifiers
Barron is likely to keep his place in Clement’s XI when Rangers host Dynamo Kiev in the second-leg of their Champions League third-round qualifier on Tuesday night.
He played 71 minutes during that 1-1 first-leg draw in Poland.
Former Dynamo defender Volodymyr Yezerskiy feels that Barron and Diomande won the midfield battle too, goalkeeper Jack Butland barely having a save to make after Andriy Yarmolenko opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time.
“There were two different halves. Before the break, Dynamo left a more complete impression. Each player clearly knew his role, there was dynamics, skilful play, quick transitions from defence to attack,” Yezerskiy tells Sport, a pair of Ukraine internationals struggling to impose themselves.
“The Scots increased their intensity (after half-time), started pressing high up. And it turned out that the Kievans were not always able to escape from under this tight guard.
“(Volodymyr) Brazhko and (Mykola) Shaparenko could not keep up with the opponents’ movements in the midfield.”
