Nikola Katic deserves Rangers chance and defender can use John Souttar as perfect example to reboot career

The old cliche ‘feels like a new signing’ might be delivered as a compliment but it’s one that 99 per cent of players would gladly avoid like a pub league tackle.

Put simply it’s an expression which only ever accompanies a return from a lengthy, and often serious, absence through injury.

Case in point: John Souttar last summer at Hearts.

After fighting back from a demoralising third Achilles injury which had sidelined him for 14 months the defender finally enjoyed an - almost - trouble free campaign to prove he was still one of the best defenders in the country.

Robbie Neilson said it himself early on in the season. Souttar was back to his best and felt like a new signing.

The defender’s form soon saw him back in the Scotland squad and on his way to Rangers.

Which is where the 25-year-old’s story can now act as a source of inspiration to a player who might very well find himself right up against Souttar for a spot in Gio van Bronckhorst ’s defence next season.

Nikola Katic. The forgotten man of Ibrox and perhaps the only man in the dressing room who never felt invincible during Rangers’ unbeaten run to the Premiership title a year ago.

The Croat appeared to be at the peak of his powers in the weeks before the Covid crisis brought the world to a halt in March 2020.

A winning goal in the New Year Old Firm derby at Parkhead had elevated the young central defender onto a new level of adoration from the Ibrox faithful.

Then just as the Scottish game was preparing for its return, and Rangers were limbering up for their first title in a decade, Katic was struck down with a freak training ground injury that left him nursing a cruciate rupture which would take a year to repair.

Harsh doesn’t start to describe it.

But just