Rangers may unearth a new Gazza in "special" unseen 17 y/o who's "so much" like Rooney - opinion

With Rangers doing their utmost to make Ibrox a fortress again in recent years, the Gers haven’t placed too much importance on blooding the young stars of tomorrow.

Indeed, with Rangers fighting tooth and nail to reclaim the Scottish Premiership title, something they did last season, they couldn’t afford to hand out chances to their up and coming stars.

Nathan Patterson was afforded minutes before moving to Everton but aside from that, young faces have found life difficult to make the grade in Glasgow.

After all, the only teenager in Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s squad at the moment is Amad Diallo and even he is on loan from Manchester United.

With that in mind, you can hardly argue against a certain Billy Gilmour for taking his leave and joining Chelsea in a measly £500k deal a few years ago.

Scottish football was issued a timely reminder this week of how much more it needs to do to offer its young talents a route to the first team when it was reported that Celtic’s “generational talent” in Ben Doak was closing in on a move to Liverpool at the tender age of 16.

That’s precisely why the likes of Rangers have tried to pluck away young gems from some less prestigious leagues around the globe.

In April of 2020, they completed the signing of Charlie Lindsay from Glentoran who was enthused by the idea of working with Steven Gerrard.

A midfield player himself, the move to Scotland was an easy one for Lindsay and even if he’s never been seen in the Rangers first-team yet, the future is still incredibly bright for a teenager who is just 17 years of age.

The Northern Irishman has earned rave reviews for his performances at youth level with The Athletic’s Jordan Campbell saying that he was “running the show” earlier this term.

Campbe