Kyle Lafferty’s injury should’ve given Umar Sadiq another glimpse at a Rangers squad.
If Steven Gerrard truly fancied the Nigerian forward, he would’ve been in the squad yesterday. Other than Alfredo Morelos, Gerrard decided to go without a recognised striker in his squad against St Mirren instead.
With the amount of abuse and heavy-tackling Morelos gets, this was a bold move. It also told us that Gerrard clearly doesn’t fancy Sadiq as much as everyone may have thought when they saw the line-up against Aberdeen.
Interestingly, Gerrard said after the game that Sadiq had done “okay”. He also said, however, that “whether that’s enough moving forward, we’ll wait and see”. These aren’t comments that typify a manager who trusts his player.
To keep Sadiq’s morale up, if anything, then Gerrard would’ve just thrown him in to keep his spirits up. It appears, however, that Gerrard doesn’t value him very highly compared to the rest of his squad.
We questioned why Sadiq was still getting on squad benches last month. It looked as though he was down and out, and we believed that spot could’ve been put to better use to a young player. It’s clear now, however, that Gerrard was keeping him ready for the Betfred Cup semi-final against Aberdeen.
Unfortunately for Sadiq, he wasted his big chance in that one. Despite putting in a decent overall display, the forward wasted it with his now infamous dive.
That’s the moment that seems to now have defined his time Ibrox. If he was to ever recover from this, it would be one heck of a surprise.
It could be the case that Sadiq comes back into the squad on Thursday night. Perhaps even next Sunday if Lafferty is still nursing his thigh knock. It’s not as if Lafferty has done much since returning either.
It’s looking as though the Rangers manager has perhaps lost faith in his big Nigerian forward. Dropped from the squad against Kilmarnock and now St Mirren tells us a lot about how Sadiq’s viewed with regards to the first team.
