Confirmed: Hagi back in the reserves at Rangers

Ianis Hagi is once again turning out for the Rangers B Team after being named in the starting XI to face Partick Thistle in the Glasgow Cup.

The side was confirmed by the club’s B & Academy X account on 5 November with the Romanian named alongside the likes of Clinton Nsiala, Leon King and Bailey Rice.

Hagi, 25, was a regular for the reserves earlier this season while frozen out of Philippe Clement’s senior set up, before a contract stand off was resolved last term to bring him back into the fold.

He was sent off in his first Light Blues first-team appearance in over a year in the 2-0 win against St Johnstone on 6 October, before returning to feature off the bench in the damaging 2-1 loss at Aberdeen on 30 Ocotber.

Philippe Clement brought Romanian ace back in at Rangers

The likelihood is that Hagi is featuring for the B Team again to help build up fitness after his badly-timed suspension with the senior side.

But given he did get a late outing as a substitute at Pittodrie in the previous Scottish Premiership fixture it might set alarm bells ringing for fans of the former Alaves loanee that he is the only senior first team member involved.

And given how bizarre his exile was throughout preseason and the first two months of a struggling campaign it is hard to be certain of anything around the attacking midfielder’s management at Ibrox.

The likes of Nsiala, King, Rice, Cole McKinnon and Robbie Fraser all have first-team experience for the Gers and are all in the XI but Hagi clearly sticks out in light of the context of his campaign to date.

He remained on the bench at Hampden Park on 3 November as Clement’s side came back from a goal down to book a place in the League Cup final against Celtic, with a 2-1 win over Motherwell.

And in light of how poorly some players have performed recently it would be extreme if Hagi was the one to drop out of favour.

He turned out diligently for the B Team for weeks earlier this year, to the bemusement of many who were watching the likes of Scott Wright struggle to make an impact, with Todd Cantwell also out of the picture after asking to leave.

It seemingly took Hagi to forfeit the pay increase he would have been due in order to find a way back in [Daily Record, 1 October], with Clement rapidly changing his tune from insisting there was no way back [Daily Mail, 31 August] to lauding the Romanian as being like a new signing [Sky Sports, 2 October].

An exit at the end of the season has been predicted all the same [PLZ Soccer, 7 October], but either way, after a couple of substitute appearances, he is back where he started tonight.

In other Rangers news, Clement has made a “big, big statement” to leave one of his own failed signings upset in the squad.

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