FORMER Celtic boss Liam Brady knows Rangers midfielder Gedion Zelalem arrived in Glasgow a boy and is confident he will leave it as a man.

Brady signed the 18-year-old for the Gunners from lower league football in America back in 2013 in his role as Head of Youth and has watched his progress with keen interest.

He admits there are key questions to be answered by the youngster during his time at Ibrox. There are clear issues relating to his physical prowess, particularly if he harbours hopes of making it in the likes of the Barclays Premier League, and ability to impose himself on a game from start to finish.

However, he has been an excellent addition to Mark Warburton's squad so far thanks to his terrific range of passing and drive from the midfield area.

Brady believes Zelalem's time in the Ladbrokes Championship will be instructive to Arsenal's management team because it will show them how he copes with a harder environment than that he has been accustomed to at under-age level. He is also certain that the United States youth internationalist will emerge from the experience a far more rounded player.

"It will toughen him up," said Brady. "He will learn how to cope with the physicality of playing against men and I think that is one of the main advantages to him going to Rangers.

"There are question marks that exist about all the players that you send on loan. That is why they are going on loan to see how they get on, but we rate him very highly at Arsenal."

That seems clear. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger took him on a pre-season tour of Asia as a 16-year-old, playing him in matches against the Vietnam national team and Japanese side Nagoya Grampus.

He was handed a new contract that runs until the summer of 2017 in March 2014 and given an outing as a second half substitute in a 4-1 win over Galatasaray in Turkey in the closing stages of the Champions League group campaign the following season.

Since then, though, he has had little to shout about. Wenger actively encouraged him to make the move to Rangers, but Brady, now an ambassador for community project The Arsenal Foundation, does not believe that should be read as a sign that the Frenchman does not believe Zelalem has what it takes to make the grade at the very top level.

"He is a very skilful player and I can say that Arsene does rate him very, very highly," said Brady.

"He included him as a very young player in the League Cup and has given him a taste of Champions League football in a match that really didn't matter as we had already qualified.

"Giving a kid that kind of responsibility by picking him was a demonstration, in my mind, of how high Arsene does rate him.

"He has played a lot of Under-21 football, though, and it is time for him to play with men and that is why he has gone up to Glasgow."

Zelalem has also been making strides in his international career this week, spending time with the United States Under-23 squad in Manchester and finding himself involved in last night's friendly with Qatar at Bury's Gigg Lane.

The Rangers midfielder is one of seven players called up from the side that competed in the Under-20s World Cup in New Zealand this summer and has been given the opportunity to show that he deserves a spot in the roster for the 2015 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Championship in the States next month.

"For us it's an important camp," said US coach Andi Herzog. "These new players have the chance to show how good they are and, at the end, we have to make the decision for the final roster for the Olympic Qualifying tournament.

"It is a great chance for every single player to show how good he is."

There is a clear path there for Zelalem to take within the framework of the US national teams. Jurgen Klinsmann, the head coach of the A squad, stated earlier this year that he believes he is already capable of making the step up to full international football.

"It is totally in the open to have him play with the Under-23s or with the Under-20s, but he's a special case," said Klinsmann. "I think he's already at a level where he can definitely play for the senior team."

Zelalem was actually born in Germany to Ethiopian parents and emigrated to the United States with his father following the death of his mother in 2005. He became a US citizen last December and pledged his footballing career to his adopted country back in May.

It was a decision that went down perfectly well with Wenger.

"I leave the freedom to the players to play for the country where their heart is," he said. "There are more and more people who have been educated in two or three different countries.

"He is an interesting case because he was educated until the age of 9-10 in Germany and then 10-15 in the States. That is maybe the age where you go out of the family and start to have friends. He felt he wanted to play for the States."