Swansea City striker Jerry Yates showed Rangers exactly what they’re missing with a debut goal for the Swans in their Championship opener against Birmingham City.
The 26-year-old striker was making his debut for the Welsh outfit and scored their only goal in a 1-1 draw with the Blues, Jerry Yates equalising after Siriki Dembele had given Birmingham the lead.
The striker kept his cool to run along the last line of defence and receive a low cross into the box which he finished effortlessly to earn his side a point.
Whilst a draw might be viewed as an opening day disappointment by some at Swansea, the fact Jerry Yates got off the mark for the club will be viewed as a huge positive.
The striker made the switch to the south Wales from Blackpool in the summer, with Swansea paying a reported £2.5m to sign Yates from the relegated Championship club.
Jerry Yates underway for Swansea as Rangers draw blank
A highly-rated striker who has been linked with Rangers since the days of Steven Gerrard, reports had even namechecked Ibrox interest following the player’s move to Swansea.
It’s clear that Rangers’ attentions were focused elsewhere with the club investing the bones of £15m in a new frontline for the season.
Sam Lammers, Abdallah Sima, Cyriel Dessers and Danilo Pereira da Silva have all joined Rangers and all four fired blanks as the club fell to a painful 1-0 opening day defeat to Kilmarnock.
As the new-look Rangers attack was drawing a blank at Rugby Park over the weekend, Jerry Yates was showing the Ibrox club what they’re missing with his goalscoring career at Swansea well underway.
Time will tell whether or not Rangers made the right move in focusing their efforts on non UK-based attackers this window with Scottish football an unforgiving environment to bed into.
With Celtic only dropping points in three games before lifting the title last season, Rangers are already playing catch up and any more early-season repeats of Rugby Park will heap more pressure on Michael Beale.
If Jerry Yates continues to do the business for Swansea, and Rangers’ expensive attackers continue to draw blanks, we suspect a failure to move for the striker will also come under scrutiny.
