Steven Davis might not kick another ball for Rangers after being ruled out for the season with a serious knee injury while in possession of a contract that expires in the summer.
But Michael Beale isn’t betting on it. Not when he sees the massive influence the Northern Ireland captain has on his dressing room even when hobbling around on crutches after surgery. The Rangers manager hasn’t ruled out extending the 38-year-old’s time at Ibrox, even if game time were to be limited next term AND if Davis wants to prolong his career, maybe by combining playing and coaching.
Beale knows a thing or two about that and when he says he regards the midfielder as an extension of himself in terms of his ability to communicate and educate those around him, you get the impression these may not be the dying months of Davis’ Rangers career. Beale said: “He’s back in the training ground. He’s had the op and he’s in and around the lads. I saw that glint in his eye.
“Steven Davis will have a magnitude of options. He was going to be a key player for us between now and the end of the season and we have missed him. Times like at Kilmarnock when we were 3-1 in front. I just think Steven would have made better decisions for the group. Maybe a little word in one or two ears, so we are missing him. He’s got a long road in terms of his recovery, but I think everything is in Steven’s hands.”
Beale has watched from a distance Davis’ influence on the younger players in his squad and the more he sees, the more he knows he has an invaluable presence at the training ground. “Listen, he’s in every day, he’s talking to people at lunchtimes. Someone like Steven in a one-to-one with a young Adam Devine or Alex Lowry, you’ve got to allow Steven to be Steven.
“It was the same when Jermain Defoe was here. He’d had a chat with Calvin Bassey or Joe Aribo at lunch and that helped form where their minds are at. A lot is made sometimes about age but the experiences some of these boys have had, I need them to be an extension of me.
“Steven is certainly that. He’s very calm, he thinks about the group and not himself. Allan McGregor is the same. Allan is at an age where he thinks about the team.
“Any messaging we put in the meetings they (Davis and McGregor) try and feed through. You’re the coach and you talk in the changing room. But when the players go out, who’s the glue between you and the squad? We have a number of them here.”
McGregor, Davis, Scott Arfield and Ryan Jack are all out of contract in the summer but have bags of experience that can be as important off the pitch as on it. And while there are no guarantees that the quartet will be around next term, Beale is keeping his options open.
“I see talk about the older players, that we need to turn them over,” he added. “I don’t think people realise the importance some people have as to why a team plays a certain way. I like to have all the seniors in and around the changing room. They are still playing, you can’t put words into their mouths and you can’t retire anyone.”
Asked if he knew what McGregor and Davis were planning at the end of their deals, Beale answered: “That’s down to the players. But with both those guys, why wouldn’t we want to tap into their experience?
“I don’t know if they want to go down the coaching route, whether it’s via the academy or the first team. I have seen that work really well during my time at Liverpool.
“The ex-players come back and they see where they’re at. Some enjoy just staying within the academy, others want to try management. Steven Davis and Scotty Arfield might want to go down that route, Scotty might want to go back to music and that was his first love.
“They’ve got a lot of options. They’ve both been international captains and they won’t be short of opportunities in life. They know how much I think of them.”
Beale is aiming to extend his unbeaten run since returning to Ibrox to 13 games when Partick Thistle come calling in the Scottish Cup on Sunday and he senses a massive upshift in confidence levels as the wins - 12 of them - have piled up. That, and the signing of Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin allied to the return of Ianis Hagi and with others soon to follow, has made the Rangers squad much stronger looking than it was when he took over from Gio van Bronckhorst in November.
But there will be far more work done in the summer transfer window than was completed in January. He said: “January is a notoriously difficult month to navigate. We obviously did some work but it’s the summer when you nudge the group on a bit or you make some of your players think because you present them with a different option.
“What I’ve tried to do over the past seven or eight games with the group is make those on the outside think, ‘okay, things are not as terrible as others were making out.’ We get Hagi back, Roofe back, Souttar back, Lawrence back, the squad starts to look strong. I have to realise where we are now, and where we need to be. Chances are, he’s edging towards trying to persuade Steven Davis that he can help Rangers get to where Beale needs them to be.
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