Rangers career may be over for Ridvan Yilmaz after Michael Beale snub as ‘really hard’ verdict issued – Chris Jack
It is “really hard” to see where Ridvan Yilmaz goes at Rangers after being left out of the Europa League squad and his prospects at the club could be finished, according to Chris Jack.
The Herald journalist summed up the Turkish international’s situation on the Rangers Review YouTube channel on Wednesday (13 September), agreeing with host Derek Clark that if anything other than further injury is behind Micheal Beale’s latest exclusion it doesn’t look good for his time in Glasgow.
According to Jack the 22-year-old should have replaced Borna Barisic this summer, but it has “never looked like actually happening”, and the latest set back has left it a mystery as to whether he is actually good enough for Rangers.
Clark said (4m 15s): “If it’s anything other than an injury then his career at Rangers, to me, looks over.”
Jack replied: “It’s hard to argue Derek. His Rangers career has never really got started. There was a lot of hype when he came in in terms of the money that was spent and him fitting a profile of the man that comes in and takes over from Borna Barisic. It’s never looked like actually happening…
“It’s really hard to see where he goes from here. I think Barisic has had an okay start to the season but I think he would have been one of the guys over the summer if he had left it would have been, ‘Thanks Borna, you’ve done your bit. You’ve got us to Sevilla, you’ve won us a league. No hard feelings but it’s time to move on.’
“Barisic isn’t the type of guy you’re going to build a squad or a back four around over the next four seasons. Yilmaz, given his age profile, should have been but just can’t get anywhere near the team.
“And because he’s played that little and hasn’t really had a sustained run we still don’t really know if he’s actually that good.”
Bleak outlook
Whether it is an injury or not it isn’t a positive development for Yilmaz to be left out for the European campaign, since he already has missed so much football since his move and the position should be there for the taking.
Having agreed to pay up to £5million for him just over a year ago [Sky Sports] he barely featured last term until an encouraging run late in the season when the title was already lost.
That prompted some very hopeful projections over the summer that he was about to make the step up for the new season in place of the perennially under-fire Croatian Barisic.
But another injury kept him out of action once more, until he replaced the older man for the final 25 minutes of the Old Firm derby defeat which has left Beale under so much pressure.
So for his first involvement in the Rangers season to instantly be followed by exclusion from the Europa League squad either means he has suffered another set-back, or the manager doesn’t trust him as much as alternatives who would be playing out of position, and neither is a good sign.
If he could ever get a run in the team for meaningful games it would be possible to determine a potential future for him at Ibrox, but that only seems to be getting further away at this stage.
In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart has blasted the club for leaving an unhappy player to “wither on the vine”.