John Souttar endures ropey Rangers debut but Ibrox punters know all about comeback stories - Andy Newport verdict

Rangers fans should know by now the perils of jumping to early conclusions.

Had first impressions counted for anything, there’s every chance Ally McCoist and Andy Goram may have been bombed out before they exploded into the Ibrox icons they became. McCoist is able to laugh now about the time he had the entire Copland Road telling him where to go.

He’d managed to hit everything but the back of the net on an afternoon of awful finishing against Dundee not long after arriving at the club in 1983. But back then it looked seriously doubtful he’d ever win over the critics howling from the terraces. There were plenty ready to write off Goram too after his 1991 switch from Hibs when The Goalie compounded a costly Tynecastle blunder with another major mistake in a European Cup clash with Sparta Prague a month-and-a-half later.

Both men had the steel-lined mentality required to survive their testing bedding-in period.

So those ready to issue snap judgments on John Souttar after his torrid debut at Livingston should hold their horses until the former Hearts man is given the chance to prove if he has the resolve required at Rangers. If McCoist and Goram’s tales of caution against reactionary conclusions are a bit long in the tooth, then the Ibrox fan base have more recent precedents in John Lundstram and Calvin Bassey.

There wouldn’t have been many grumbles had Lundstram been shown the door in January but, given time and trust by Giovanni van Bronckhorst, the silky Scouser has earned cult status among the Gers faithful with his displays on the road to Seville.

And the Ibrox board have 20 million reasons to be glad van Bronckhorst and his predecessor Steven Gerrard persisted with Bassey after his part in a shock defeat to St