Rangers target Max Aarons has plenty of catching up to do should he choose to pursue a career at Ibrox — having gone an entire two years without organised football after leaving Luton Town as a kid.
Right-back Aarons was just 14 when he left Luton’s academy and spent a couple of years working on his own game with a specialised skills coach lined up by his father Mike before finally getting a chance at Norwich City in 2016.
He left Carrow Road for Bournemouth in a £7million deal in the summer of 2023 after five good years in the first-team set-up, but suffered injuries early in his time at the Cherries and has struggled for regular action since.
A loan deal at Spanish outfit Valencia in the second half of last season also failed to deliver the appearances he craved, but the 25-year-old’s determination to do things his own way as a teenager gives an indication of the tunnel vision he will need to make a go of it in Glasgow.
While not having a team between the ages of 14 and 16, Aarons’ family would drive him from the family home in Milton Keynes to Mill Hill in London to go through training drills with personal coach Saul Isaksson-Hurst, who had set up his own business after periods working with Chelsea and Spurs.
‘That was a weird period,’ recalled Aarons in an interview during his time at Norwich. ‘Even my friends who were playing Sunday league would be saying at school during the week: “Oh, I can’t wait for our game this weekend”.
‘I’d be sat there, thinking: “I’m not even playing this weekend”. I just trusted that the training I was doing was good enough for me. I knew it was a process I had to go through to find the right club.
‘I changed completely as a player. It brought me to new levels. The only real downside was that I wasn’t playing in a team, so I wasn’t getting to put it into practice.’
‘Born winner’ Gattuso tipped to make Italy great again
Former Rangers favourite Rino Gattuso has been given the seal of approval by two Italian national team legends after being handed the job as national coach of the Azzurri.
The 47-year-old has taken over from Luciano Spalletti after leaving his previous role as boss of Croatian outfit Hajduk Split.
And Gattuso, who played at Ibrox for 15 months between 1997 and 1998 after being signed by Walter Smith from Perugia, has received strong backing from former Italy boss Marcello Lippi as well as legendary goalkeeper Gigi Buffon.
Lippi, who won the World Cup in 2006 with Gattuso in his side, told La Stampa: ‘I am so happy for Rino, I’m sure he’ll do really well.’
Buffon, meanwhile, now works as the head of delegation for the Italian FA and believes the right man has been signed up for the job after initial discussions with Claudio Ranieri, who is remaining as a senior adviser at AS Roma, broke down.
‘The President and the Federation had some pretty full days full of various moments,’ said Buffon. ‘I think, at the end of the day, we made the best possible decision.
‘We are trying to push ourselves first and foremost, but the most important thing is that we avoid embarrassing performances that are unworthy of Italy. There are different ways to lose and I think we can avoid the worst kind with a few minor adjustments.’
That was a reference to the Azzurri’s recent 3-0 defeat to Norway in Oslo, which saw Spalletti’s Italy trail by three goals at half-time as their World Cup qualifying campaign got off to the worst possible start.
Italian FA president Gabriele Gravina is certainly a huge fan of the passion Gattuso will bring to the Italian cause.
‘Gattuso is a symbol of Italian football — the blue jersey is like a second skin for him. His motivations, his professionalism and his experience will be fundamental to best face the upcoming commitments of the national team,’ he said.
Kent is anything but sleepless in Seattle
When Ryan Kent was pondering his future in the game during almost two years of inactivity at Fenerbahce, the thought of turning out in the Club World Cup would have been the stuff of fantasy even to the former Rangers winger himself.
Yet that’s where the 28-year-old finds himself right now — and on Monday he will complete his career renaissance by turning out against reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain in the Sounders’ final fixture in Group B.
Kent agreed a one-year deal with the MLS outfit in March and has been an ever-present since making his debut off the bench in a 3-0 win over Nashville a month later.
While still working his way up to full fitness after so long in cold storage — having been frozen out in Turkey by former Fenerbahce manager Ismail Kartal and his successor Jose Mourinho — Kent has shown enough in Seattle to suggest he still has some top-level football in him.
His new club were handed a nightmare section in FIFA’s new-look club competition and they were unfortunate to lose their opener 2-1 to Brazilian outfit Botafogo despite dominating large spells of the contest.
It didn’t get any easier from there, with Kent and Co in action against Atletico Madrid last night prior to rounding off their group fixtures against PSG.
Whether Kent is able to catch the eye of any European suitors in this summer’s shop window is unclear, given the lack of eyes that seem to be taking in the competition. But, after so long out of the game, it is good to see the former Liverpool starlet playing with a smile on his face once again.
With the buzz around next year’s World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico only set to intensify, an extended stay in Seattle could be just what Kent needs to help him rediscover his mojo. After all, his latest stop in Seattle is already proving anything but sleepless.
The curious case of Brahim Hemdani post-Panathinaikos
The Champions League qualification draw that has pitted Rangers against Panathinaikos will throw up some happy memories for fans keen to look back on the road to Manchester in 2008, but it also spurred Rangers Confidential to consider the curious case of one former midfield star who shone the last time the two sides faced each other.
Brahim Hemdani was a standout in midfield as the Ibrox side secured an away-goals victory thanks to Nacho Novo’s 81st-minute equaliser in a 1-1 draw in Athens following a goalless first leg at Ibrox.
It was just one of many European masterclasses from the Algerian international en route to the final at the Etihad Stadium for a match that Walter Smith’s men would lose to Dick Advocaaat and Fernando Ricksen’s Zenit Saint Petersburg side.
Remarkably, though, despite the European highlights yet to come, things were never the same for Hemdani after that evening in Athens. Having featured for the entire 90 minutes of the seven league fixtures that preceded Panathinaikos, the then 29-year-old would only play one further domestic league fixture in club football — for any team, never mind Rangers.
Smith did have a wealth of midfield options at his disposal, with Barry Ferguson, Steven Davis, Kevin Thomson, Lee McCulloch and Charlie Adam all featuring across the central area as Rangers fought it out with Celtic for the title.
Yet every time a European tie came into view, Hemdani was straight back on the teamsheet. After the Greeks came Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon and Fiorentina — and Hemdani played all 570 minutes of those ties as the Ibrox men stunned Europe by reaching their first continental final since 1972.
Every time Saturday came around, however, Hemdani was nowhere to be seen, not even making the squad. The only appearances he did make domestically in Light Blue in the midst of that European run came against Celtic, with Hemdani suddenly thrust in for 79 minutes of a 3-2 defeat at Parkhead, and then in a Scottish Cup semi-final against St Johnstone which Rangers won on penalties. Hemdani played all 120 minutes of that one, just four days out from shackling a talented Fiorentina side in a 0-0 draw at Ibrox.
For a player so clearly trusted for the big occasion, it was baffling that he was used so sparingly on the home front. And when the club added Maurice Edu and Pedro Mendes the following season, there was no way back for Hemdani, who left Ibrox in June 2009 when his contract expired and never played for another club side again.
Two weeks after that painful UEFA Cup final defeat in Manchester, Hemdani made his international debut for Algeria. He added one further cap, against Senegal in September 2008, before disappearing from the radar for good.
Has there ever been a more perplexing end to a player’s career than that?
Coady deal would set up reunion with Rodgers
Should Rangers prove successful in their bid to land Leicester City centre-half Conor Coady, it would set up an emotional reunion in Glasgow the former England defender with his one-time Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers.
Celtic boss Rodgers handed Coady his sole start for his boyhood idols when he was picked in a three-man midfield — alongside Jordan Henderson and Jonjo Shelvey — for a 1-0 Europa League defeat against Anzhi Makhachkala back in 2012.
The Scouser struggled to build on that outing, however, and found his opportunities limited in his then-favoured midfield position due to the presence of the likes of Steven Gerrard and Joe Allen at Anfield.
A successful loan spell at Sheffield United whetted Coady’s appetite for first-team football and, with no sign of a breakthrough at title-chasing Liverpool, he departed for Huddersfield Town in 2014 with the warm words of the current Celtic manager ringing in his ears.
‘Brendan Rodgers was good to me when I was young,’ revealed Coady in a 2020 interview. ‘I had a season training with the first team at Melwood, learning off them. That was big for me, but I always knew it was tough.
‘I knew at some point I’d have to come away from Liverpool to really experience being a first-team player. It was the best decision I ever made, and Brendan was great for that; he pushed that to send me on loan and try to improve my game.
‘Liverpool were always getting better, they were always improving, and the players in my position were ridiculous. But I just wanted to play football. I knew where I was at, the type of level I was at, but I just wanted to be part of a first team, playing in games which meant something, playing against men.’
Coady proved a standout Championship performer for the Terriers and it wasn’t long before Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo swooped to take him to Molineux, converting him to a central defender. It was an inspired move on both counts as Coady soon became club captain and led the Midlands outfit to the Premier League, earning international recognition for England under Gareth Southgate.
While he was part of two England squads for major finals, at Euro 2020 when Southgate’s side finished runners-up and a year later at the Qatar World Cup, he failed to make an appearance at either tournament — though Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland famously named him England’s ‘player of the tournament’ due to the impact his presence had on the squad in camp.
‘In the dressing room before the game, he speaks like he’s captain, despite the fact that he’s not been on the pitch yet — which is incredibly difficult to do,’ Holland said during Euro 2020 while likening Coady to his former Chelsea charge John Terry.
That is certainly the type of character Rangers require as Russell Martin begins his rebuild of a squad badly in need of leadership. And, having watched Coady blossom after moving on from Anfield, Rodgers will be wary of a former face with a point to prove all these years on.
