There has been plenty of talk surrounding James Tavernier recently and his new contract is a win-win situation for both player and club. Whenever discussions crop up about full-backs, my mind immediately turns to the great Sandy Jardine. If Tavernier, or any other player in that particular position, wants to learn the trade and see how the game should be played then I’d suggest they get videos of Sandy playing in the 1970s and the 1980s and you’ll find out exactly how to do it. You couldn’t buy him nowadays.

Since signing on at Rangers, Tavernier, in my opinion, has not been fantastic but he’s not been bad either. He’s perhaps been somewhere above mediocre to be fair; a decent full back but nothing special. It’s changed a bit this season and he looks a different player altogether. I think he’s been exceptional and, arguably, Rangers’s best player.

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He came from a relatively provincial club in Wigan Athletic but I don’t tend to look at what they did at their past teams, especially the smaller clubs. When you come up to Glasgow, it’s a city of two teams. You’re either a winner or a loser. Coming second in Glasgow is no use whatsoever.

The pressure here is 10-times more than what they will have experienced elsewhere. You have to learn how to survive amid all the scrutiny and expectation and as the years have gone on, Tavernier has adapted to that. He’s realised he has a big part to play. If you’re at Rangers for two or three years, you grow up helluva quickly. The best attacking full back Rangers ever had was Sandy, there’s no doubt about that.

That’s what Tavernier has to live up to. At a huge club, comparisons with the past are always going to be there. Sandy was a better defender. What I want in a full back first and foremost is an ability to defend; that’s why you are there quite simply. If you can play football, get forward and score goals, then that’s a huge bonus. Tavernier has learned that. He’s become a better defender. He’s not diving in as much – apart from the game against Hibs where he gave away a penalty. He is improving defensively but his strength is getting forward, engineering opportunities and scoring goals.

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Saying that, however, it’s all very well charging forward but when you get caught against the better teams, then that’s where the problems start. As a full back it’s all about timing your runs. Tavernier is still learning that. Sometimes he’s so eager to get forward and create or score he forgets that he’s a full back. Maybe his best position is actually as a midfielder going forward and back, I don’t know. But if he’s playing right back he’s got to time his runs. Sometimes I don’t think he realises what’s going on behind him and someone has to come in and fill that hole when he’s off. When Sandy got forward he very rarely wasted a ball. He got it in the box and left it to the rest of us in there to finish the job. Don’t forget, Sandy was a midfielder and a striker at one stage in his early days at Ibrox so he knew how to get forward and had the ability to do that. But he had everything as a defender.

At the other end of the park, meanwhile, I was intrigued by the partnership of Jason Cummings and Alfredo Morelos in the Scottish Cup win over Ayr United. It was a good game to do it in but will they they play with two up front regularly? I can’t see it. I think they are two players who are used to playing up on their own with someone playing off of them. It will be horses for courses. Against the bigger teams, you always need that extra man in midfield and I don’t see them playing two up front. I played up on my own. The best I played was with Gordon Smith. People thought we played a four-four-two with Gordon and myself up front. I scored 30 odd goals and he got 20 odd in one season but he played off me, he didn’t play alongside me. He always got up to support me though but it was never a two up front job. It was one up and the other maybe 10 or 15 yards behind.

The one thing you get out of Morelos is that he works his socks off in every game and he likes that because he’s the only man up. He’s a wee bit like Derek Parlane in a sense. Parlane used to knock defenders down. A centre half would look up and say ‘excuse me, I’m supposed to knock you down’. You need to put a bit of fear into defenders. You have to be brave and Morelos is certainly that. He enjoys the challenge of playing up front alone.

The challenge for Graeme Murty on the otherhand is that he has a lot of choices to make. He has so many midfielders and strikers with various players getting back to fitness. He’s got a hard job picking a first team. But that’s a great problem to have.