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Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has a lot of squad decisions to make this summer.
Last season may have been an improvement on previous years for the Ibrox side but it still wasn’t good enough for plenty of supporters, once again going trophy-less having gone out of cup competitions early and failing to sustain a credible title challenge.
One of his tasks will be deciding what kind of role his young, emerging stars will play over the course of next season.
Will he invest more time into their development? Should they be sent on loan? Are they good enough to feature heavily?
One such player is winger Glenn Middleton, who has experienced both exposure to first-team action and life on the fringes of the manager’s squad.
Watch how to cross the road like a boss with freestyler Ben Nuttall in the video below…
On the chalkboard
From a personal perspective, the 2018/19 season was a breakthrough one for Middleton.
Making his Gers debut, which happened to be his first senior career appearance, the teenager ended up impressing Gerrard enough to get a sustained run in the first-team, allowing him to experience UEFA Europa League group stage football and even thrill fans by scoring away at Spartak Moscow.
The sky seemed to be the limit in terms of potential and where his Gers career might take him next, but after the winter break he was frozen out of first-team action and played mostly for the reserve team.
Despite making 27 appearances in total, there are definite question marks about his future under Gerrard having not started a single match since December.
Is he good enough?
Effectively playing half a season, mostly from the bench, Middleton still pitched in with five goals and five assists, which isn’t a bad return at all for a rookie player.
For the reserves and youth sides he often shone too, with clips regularly appearing online of him doing wonderful things at that level.
There’s definitely still hope for him at Rangers despite the lack of action in 2019, but he needs regular football that will help him learn and make better decisions at a senior level.
Celtic have found success in this regard in recent seasons, allowing Ryan Christie to develop at Aberdeen and figure out how to become the main man in a starting eleven.
Middleton needs that kind of confidence to make the next step at Ibrox. If he can regularly score goals and win games for another club, it will prove to Gerrard he is ready to feature more regularly and can be relied upon.
To make it at Rangers, he might have to leave the club first.
