While a succession of Rangers managers have had to address various key positions at Ibrox over the best part of the last decade, one area they haven't had to look at is right back. And that's because James Tavernier has had the confidence of every boss from Mark Warburton to Michael Beale.
Steven Gerrard even trusted him enough to award him the captain's armband after Lee Wallace's controversial end to his Ibrox career and Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Beale have been happy to stick with him as their on-field leader. In terms of consistency and goals, Tavernier has proved huge value for money for a couple of hundred grand from Wigan Athletic in 2016.
But the 31-year-old can't go on for ever and it's an area that will need to be addressed at some point. Nathan Patterson would have been that man but Rangers cashed in him with a big money move to Everton, some of which was spent on Mateusz Zukowski but he was quickly sent back to Poland on loan. Youngster Adam Devine is also on the books but it would be a big leap for him to become a first team regular. And Dujon Sterling is a name that has now emerged, with the versatile right back linked with a loan move to Beale's QPR last summer from his parent club Chelsea. That suggest he's a player the Ibrox boss knows well and with his contract soon to be up then the Gers boss cold go in again. Record Sport takes a look at the latest target.
Who is Dujon Sterling?
Born in London to Jamaican parents, his footballing career started at his current club Chelsea when he joined their academy at the age of just eight years old. He has established himself as a right back but has shown his versatility in his fledgling career having played both as a striker and winger for the Blues youth team. In fact, he scored in both the semi-final and final when Chelsea won the FA Youth Cup in 2016 but when they lifted the trophy again the following year – Manchester City again their opponents – it was as a marauding right back that has become his more familiar role.
He’s been at Chelsea for a long time, has he played for the first team?
Yes – but only for all of 14 minutes. Sterling came through the youth ranks with the likes of Mason Mount, Reece James, Trevoh Chalobah, Tammy Abraham and Callum Hudson-Odoi but hasn’t progressed at the same rate as that Blues quintet in terms of making the jump to the first team. But Antonio Conte did hand him his top team debut in 2017 when he came on as a substitute in a 5-1 thrashing of Nottingham Forest at home in an EFL third round tie. Conte said afterwards: “These players are the future for Chelsea. I must consider the young players if they deserve this chance. Sterling is a really good player.” However, he didn't feature again under the Italian. Thomas Tuchel also took him on pre-season when he succeeded Conte and the German was reportedly impressed with him, although he didn’t feature in his first team plans.
Why hasn’t he progressed as quickly?
Sadly, injures and illness have played their part. A combination of both derailed his loan season at the DW Stadium and he hardly played for 18 months. During the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sterling suffered from a mystery illness that threatened his career and he damaged ankle ligaments in April 2022, at the end of his Blackpool loan spell.
Where has he been other than Chelsea?
Having struggled to make that breakthrough into the first team, Sterling has had four loan spells away from west London: Coventry City, Wigan Athletic, Blackpool and Stoke City.
He has 28 appearances for the Potters this season under former Hamilton Accies boss Alex Neil and had 25 in the previous campaign under Neil Critchley, the former Liverpool youth boss who succeeded Beale at QPR, at the Seasiders.
What type of player is he?
He’s predominantly a right back – old fashioned in the sense that he is strong defensively and relishes a tackle, winning 51.6 per cent of his duels according to Wyscout. But he can be deployed elsewhere. During his time on loan at Blackpool he covered in the left back position and he is also comfortable playing in a back three. But in the Rangers set up, it’s likely he would play as a right full-back. Under Jody Morris in the Chelsea youth team, he thrived as a right wing back in a 3-4-3 formation which was used to replicate Conte’s first team formula at the time and at. He has an impressive 78 per cent passing accuracy range but – and it's a big but – he hasn’t scored a senior goal with an Xg of 0.05 and zero shots on target this season and, considering Tavernier has contributed so much in that department with 17 alone this season, then he would need to improve on that statistic at Ibrox.
What has he got to say for himself?
"I don’t have a preference (about position) whether it’s right-back, wing-back, or on the wing. I can play anywhere as we know from my Academy days. I have played right-wing, right-back, left-back. Managers know they can trust me to play in a lot of positions. It gives managers confidence that they can play me in any position and I can get the job done for the team," said Sterling. "It also gives my teammates confidence that no matter where I am on the pitch, they can give me the ball and trust me.”
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