Barisic on his relationship with Gerrard

Recoba

Recoba

Well-Known Member
Official Ticketer
Borna Barisic on the 'truth' behind Rangers omission and his relationship with Steven Gerrard
Croatia international fell out of the first team reckoning last season but has returned with a bang this summer.



Borna Barisic has opened up on his relationship with Steven Gerrard as he looks to nail down the left-back slot at Rangers .
The Croatia international had an inconsistent spell last season after his £2million move from NK Osijek.
As he struggled with form and fitness, Barisic only played once in the club's last eight fixtures - that being the last game of the season at Kilmarnock.
But Barisic is back in the starting line-up and has revealed how he sacrificed his summer holiday for extra training in a bid to hit the new season running with the Ibrox side.
The full back scored last week against St Joseph's in Gibraltar with a free kick as Rangers romped to a 4-0 Europa League win.
Barisic, in an interview in a Croatian publication, can't wait to work with Gerrard again this season after brushing off doubts about his future at Rangers.



He said: "The truth is I couldn't get back into the team last season after an injury because they kept winning games. That's the way it is with Rangers - they are a great club with great players.
"I really have a brilliant relationship with Steven Gerrard. We talk about tactics and current issues. There are no problems. I feel great here and I am completely devoted to Rangers. Life in Glasgow is really good."


The left-back also revealed his determination to have a successful season this term after making a goalscoring start against St Joseph's.
Barisic said: "I had a week off during the summer, but decided to use that vacation to do additional training instead.
"I did it to try and make sure I was ready for the new season ahead. So it was nice to hit that free kick against St Joseph's. Some people gave the goal to me and others to Connor Goldson, but it doesn't matter anyway.
"I know all about the philosophy of the club. It's all about winning and I want to be a part of it."
 
I think he knows he is battling to save his Rangers career and it's good to see he has knuckled down and met the challenge head on.

He could have easily have went and enjoyed his holidays for a couple of weeks but he is obviously determined to be a success here which can only be a good thing.
 
He’s proven me wrong so far this season.

He was phenomenal in the first European game and has had some very strong friendly performances.

I’ll make a prediction that the guy will be runner up for our player of the year (with Ryan Jack as POTY).
 
Kept swearing by him, time for him to step up.

If he can become the player he is for Crotia we will frightening, his free kick last week was a cracker, some left peg.
 
Hope he has a blinder of a season and puts no neck up in the air on the 1st of September right over the top of the ball leg breaker.
 
Good to see he has got the message, now he will need games to make up for the lost time he had last season.
 
Hope he shows us the real BB this season after a difficult settling period. I'm confident if he stays fit he'll have a great season.
 
Early signs are good that he has improved significantly on last season. Got some amount of OTT abuse last season which has led to many Rangers fans inventing in their heads a wrong impression of the guy, pretending he was useless when actually he was just average last season, not good but not bad either. It was never about ability and all about mentality/confidence last season for him.

Feels to me like he just took a wee bit of time to adapt to the club.
 
Going forward he's fine but he still looks a bit wobbly defensively to me.

I can see a similar trend to Tav.

We will ship goals from the left hand side and he'll get slaughtered.

Hopefully, he can be like Tav in the sense that he can reduce his errors and become more stout defensively. If that happens we'll have a really solid player on our hands.
 
We can all see what the guy offers. An incredible delivery in play or from a set piece is probably top of the pile.

I desperately want him to succeed because when he is playing well, he is an outstanding footballer.

And if we can have Tav and Barisic on both flanks doing damage, then we are going to give teams a right hiding this season.

It was interesting to see how well he worked with Jones recently. Keep it up Borna.
 
Looked a lot more confident on Sunday when in possession let’s hope it continues because he is a good player.
 
He's a lot to prove , hopefully prove me wrong about him . Has all the tools in the box to be our LB for years to come take a leaf out of Katic book, heid down arse and become a legend
 
usbear said:
Going forward he's fine but he still looks a bit wobbly defensively to me.

I can see a similar trend to Tav.

We will ship goals from the left hand side and he'll get slaughtered.

Hopefully, he can be like Tav in the sense that he can reduce his errors and become more stout defensively. If that happens we'll have a really solid player on our hands.
Click to expand...

We quite literally cannot expect to have two bombing fullbacks and STILL not expect to not concede goals from out wide.

It’s simply not possible. One of them will either need to stay at home or our sitting midfielder has to drop in and split the centrebacks.
 
Of all our signings last Summer he was the one I had the highest hopes for. I watched him play for Osijek in the two EL games before they played us and then, obviously, in the two games against Rangers. He was outstanding in all four. Hard to believe how he struggled after a decent start at Rangers. Let's hope he can put that behind him. Still looks a bit 'nervy' and 'tentative' in my view but games like tonight, if he plays, should help to keep building his confidence. I'd start him tonight.
 
IIRC his best performances last season were when Kent wasnt playing, they just didnt seem to link up very well at all when Kent was in front of him. Was great to see the interplay between Borna, Jones and Aribo at the weekend, looked much more like the Borna we want!

Yes he's not as strong defensively, but neither was Tav 2 seasons ago, plus this season he will be playing with Helander at left CD (plus a fit Davis) which will hopefully give us much more cover when Barisic is up the pitch.
 
Scarlett said:
IIRC his best performances last season were when Kent wasnt playing, they just didnt seem to link up very well at all when Kent was in front of him. Was great to see the interplay between Borna, Jones and Aribo at the weekend, looked much more like the Borna we want!

Yes he's not as strong defensively, but neither was Tav 2 seasons ago, plus this season he will be playing with Helander at left CD (plus a fit Davis) which will hopefully give us much more cover when Barisic is up the pitch.
Click to expand...
Always looked like Kent didn't entirely trust Barisic with the ball at times.
 
Gerrard quite rightfully “called out” Barisic a couple of times last season.

It would appear that it’s had a positive reaction during this pre-season but only time will tell if he had the balls to become a success at our club.

As for others like Lafferty.... cheerio!
 
ICA_86 said:
There’s undoubtedly still a lot of fans at Ibrox who would rather see Barisic scud someone in a 50/50 than see him set up a goal.

It’s almost as if that would ‘prove’ something to them.
Click to expand...

It’s not to much to ask for both surely?

I don’t think people want “one” or the “other”
 
ICA_86 said:
There’s undoubtedly still a lot of fans at Ibrox who would rather see Barisic scud someone in a 50/50 than see him set up a goal.

It’s almost as if that would ‘prove’ something to them.
Click to expand...

Exactly mate. In fact I said that to a guy next to me at the game on Sunday, its as if he's needing to put in a tackle similar to Halliday's in the OF game to prove something to the supporters. The guy just needs to stay fit and a run of games to settle into the team. And a bit of patience from us. Wasn't that long ago folk were desperate for Tav to be dropped for Flanagan. Mental.
 
RFC_Champions said:
It’s not to much to ask for both surely?

I don’t think people want “one” or the “other”
Click to expand...

Not for those people though. He could create 100 goals next year and those people will still be getting the old ‘shitebag’ line out as often as they can.

Some people at Ibrox still give Tavernier stick because he cost a few goals in 2015, so go figure.
 
There's definitely a more steely determination about him this season.

Remaining fit will be key.
 
Barbarossa said:
Barisic will be up there challenging for our POTY

Bookmark it
Click to expand...
You could be right mate.

But I'm anticipating the POTY to be an absolute nightmare to choose from this season due to the fact that we will have so many outstanding performers in a treble winning season ! ;)
 
A very capable player who I have no doubt is going to go onto great things. I just hope it is with us. I think he has shown us all he can be a very good player and I am hoping Gerrard is going to get that out of him this season. He's started off not too badly at all - hearing that he has been putting the extra effort in with training and with the gaffer will help him along massively.
 
He's got a job on his hands to win over the fans in our support who were still claiming he was pish in the recent friendlies and the Europa game. It appears they've made their minds up and won't be for changing. But he's been impressive and long may it continue.
 
Noticed against Marseille that we were focusing play down the left a lot more. Barisic and Jones were really prominent in the first half especially.
 
ICA_86 said:
Not for those people though. He could create 100 goals next year and those people will still be getting the old ‘shitebag’ line out as often as they can.

Some people at Ibrox still give Tavernier stick because he cost a few goals in 2015, so go figure.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of your argument mate but you’re obviously being a bit mello-dramatic.

The issue is, Barisic done neither set-up lots of goals or strong tackling/defending last season. Hence the flack.

Tav can be a bit suspect on his defending at times (not so often nowadays) but he’s always offered far more going forward than he’s cost us by defending. It’s the type of player that he is and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

The same can’t be said about Barisic though (not yet anyway!)
We think we know what he’s capable of.... fingers crossed he can produce that consistently in a rangers jersey.

As for keeping everyone happy, Gerrard could deliver the treble next season and people will moan about how we got knocked out of Europe. On the whole, we’re a fickle bunch.
 
Bowery Boy said:
He's got a job on his hands to win over the fans in our support who were still claiming he was pish in the recent friendlies and the Europa game. It appears they've made their minds up and won't be for changing. But he's been impressive and long may it continue.
Click to expand...

It took some of them years before they - grudgingly - laid off Tav. In fact, some of them still haven't.:eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Latest posts

Back
Top