Dujon Sterling doesn't 'fear' the fact that right-back rival James Tavernier is Rangers captain, and admits he's eager to learn from the Hall-of-Famer who introduced him to life at Ibrox.
The former Chelsea star was hit with a nightmare start to life in Glasgow when he was deemed not fit to travel to Germany for the Light Blues' pre-season training camp. Sterling, who is one of six new summer recruits for Michael Beale, did not make the trip with fellow new arrivals Kieran Dowell, Jack Butland, Cyriel Dessers, Sam Lammers and Abdallah Sima due to injury. It's a point of concern for the London boss who also lost defender Leon King with a knock this week.
But the 23-year-old reckons his previous experience of turning out for sides who aren't 'winning teams' hasn't dampened his mentality for victory at Rangers. The Englishman also isn't fazed by Tavernier's position as club captain and believes healthy competition will help his spell in Glasgow go smoothly. The 31-year-old stalwart, however, was the first to welcome Sterling to the club as he insisted full-back is his priority but that his fellow countryman had words of encouragement.
He said: “I’ve watched Tav and Connor play and watched Rangers play on TV and they’ve been the main guys in the team, and that’s why they’ve been around for so long. Being with them in training every day, especially Tav because he plays the same position, it’s been great to learn from them.
"Tav was the first one that messaged me when I signed, he welcomed me in and said If I need anything just to let him know. On the training pitch we have been on different teams this week and it’s been good to see the difference between us.
"It is about competing together but I am not just tied down to one role. I can play many roles so I don’t fear Tav being the captain, it is about competition.
“You need competition all over the pitch, that’s how everyone will get better. No one slips up, that’s how you stay a winning team and you need that the whole season, plus there is more than one game per week. I like to prioritise on my defending. It is really important.
“A lot of defenders now, right-backs, left-backs, they get judged on their stats up the pitch but defensively they are not great. So I like to do my defending, win my one-to-one battles and when the chance arrives to go forward, do that and help the team but knowing that my team-mates and manager has trust in me to be able to defend.
"I don’t play centre-back. I play right-back or left-back. I can fill in at centre-back and I’m happy to but I wouldn’t say that my strength is playing at centre-back."
On working with Beale, he added: “The first time I ever met him (Beale) I was about seven or eight. At Chelsea you start in development at six and you do that for two years then you join the academy at under-eight. He was head of south London – I am from north London – and he was dealing with the under-14s and I was under-13 and I used to play one (year) up with his boys’ age group.
“That’s when I first got coached by him. At Chelsea, everything was about winning. You couldn’t take second place. We always had to win and I feel it here as well. You need to win. None of my loans have been with winning teams. You have had to dig deep. So I have got that mentality, I have the winning mentality and it is now putting them both together to create something here to get the next trophy.”
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