GEDION ZELALEM has urged his fellow Arsenal protégés to follow his lead and continue their development with a loan spell at Rangers.

The midfielder moved to Ibrox in the summer and has impressed for Mark Warburton’s side as the Gers have opened up a lead at the top of the Championship and progressed to the Petrofac Training Cup final and fifth round of the Scottish Cup.

Zelalem will remain in Glasgow until the end of the campaign as he looks to add to his 17 appearances in Light Blue and help Rangers clinch their Premiership return.

Glasgow Times:

Boss Warburton is keen to give up and coming kids a chance to play first team football as uses the loan market to bolster his Gers ranks.

And Zelalem reckons a switch from the Emirates to Ibrox would stand his Gunners team-mates in good stead and help them on the road to glory with Arsene Wenger’s side.

He said: “I’d definitely recommend coming to Rangers to other young players at Arsenal because they’ll learn what it’s like playing for a big club.

“I will tell the boys a lot about Rangers when I go back and would encourage anyone wanting to go on loan to come here.

“I’d tell them to go straight for it if Mark Warburton wanted them. He helps you on a personal level, he asks how you are doing off the pitch and on the pitch he will help you a lot, give you advice and take you to the side in training.

“I think it’s such a good quality to have in a manager because it means he gets the best out of his players.

Glasgow Times: Rangers manager Mark Warburton in training at Auchenhowie .

“We get more cohesion from the fact he is so tight with the group, he knows us all well and David Weir has also been fantastic. We’re a very good group and very united.

“Rangers and Arsenal are very similar clubs; there is a big family atmosphere.

“Apparently the mood is better in the dressing room compared to last year – according to the boys who were here then.

“They say we’re more united and more together, which is very important for a team that wants to win a Championship.”

Rangers had to fend off competition from clubs south of the border to land Zelalem in the summer and the highly-rated playmaker agreed an extension to his initial Ibrox deal earlier this month.

Glasgow Times: Rangers midfielder Gedion Zelalem

Former Gunners youth chief Liam Brady told SportTimes last week that the Premier League giants had no hesitation in allowing one of their young stars to remain in the Championship for the second half of the campaign.

And Zelalem is determined to use his Light Blues loan as the springboard to a spot in Wenger’s Arsenal plans next term.

“I spoke to a few people at Arsenal and they asked me if I was happy, which I was, and Arsenal were happy with it all too,” he told RangersTV.

“They text me if they’re going to be at our game and check how I’m doing, I suppose it’s like all clubs with loan players but it’s nice they stay in touch.

“I wanted to stay and help Rangers get promoted to the top division and improve my game – those two are the main targets for me. I am getting regular game time which is important to me as a young player.

“Ideally I’d go back to Arsenal in the summer and break through into the first team, the same as Hector Bellerin, who’s done fantastically and is now established as the number one right back, so that is my target.

“I still have the same ambitions as when I first came to Rangers; to be the best I can be, to be a first-team player at Arsenal and be a USA international.”