As Rangers look to secure the signing of Bayern loanee Malik Tillman, they must learn the lessons of Man Utd loanee and form Sunderland winger Amad Diallo.
The Ibrox club will reportedly have to pay £5m to sign Malik Tillman permanently, with the option-to-buy potential Bayern buyback loan deal a remnant of Ross Wilson’s Ibrox reign.
With 12 goals already, in his first full season as a regular first-teamer, the USA international has shown his quality at Ibrox this season but doubts remain in some quarters when it comes to Malik Tillman.
Rangers fans want to see the attacking midfielder take a big game by the scruff of the neck and the Hampden stage is set for Malik Tillman to go and take the game to Celtic this weekend.
But even if the talented 20-year-old fails to take the chance, Rangers need only take a look at the post-Ibrox success of Amad Diallo to realise that with young players patience is so often a virtue.
Rangers must learn Amad Diallo lesson with Malik Tillman
Man Utd reportedly splashed £19m to sign now 20-year-old Ivorian winger Amad Diallo from Serie A side Atalanta as a teenager and as a result there was much fanfare when he joined Rangers on loan.
Here was one of the globe’s brightest talents rocking up at Ibrox and with a lead in the Premiership table, the winger would help fire the side to glory and a 56th title.
How naive we all were. Rangers collapsed, at least domestically, in the second half of the season and despite a bright start surrendered the title to Celtic and are now scrambling to keep up.
Amad Diallo struggled for game time following his January loan move, and whilst he wound up taking to the club in the end, the cheeky winger didn’t have anywhere near the impact we all expected.
In the summer, Rangers fans were calling for a potential return for Amad Diallo but instead plumped for Rabbi Matondo, in another snarling indictment of Ross Wilson’s recent transfer business.
Since then, the winger has gone on to light up the Stadium of Light and is proving a key player in the Sunderland promotion push in the English Championship.
Every other week we’re writing about Amad Diallo being a matchwinner at Sunderland and it goes to show that you really do not know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
For those Rangers fans heaping the pressure on Malik Tillman, and raising their own doubts, something tells us if we don’t learn our Amad Diallo lesson here we’ll come to rue it when the young American is tearing it up on the continent.
