One of the few players Rangers actually paid money for over the summer, Ianis Hagi came with a lot of expectations.
After all, the son of the Romanian legend had enjoyed a good initial loan spell from KRC Genk, which led to Steven Gerrard and co. to spend £3m on his services, but the last few games have seen the 22-year-old spend more time on the bench than on the pitch.
Scoring a goal and assisting another five in his first 10 league appearances of the season for Rangers, Hagi was then put on the bench for the games against Hamilton, Aberdeen, Ross County and Dundee United.
He didn’t even make an appearance in the latter of the four, which has led to some questions being asked about his form back in his home country, with one journalist, Victor Ciutacu, going as far as suggesting a drastic change is needed.
Not a transfer, mind, but the name on the back of his shirt.
He told GSP: “It looks like Ianis has a problem. My opinion is that – and Gica [Gheorghe Hagi] will be upset – he should no longer write ‘Hagi’ on the back of his shirt, but ‘Ianis’. It’s a mental thing to stop being Hagi. I know it sounds bad, it’s a big name, but my opinion is that this crushes him in the first place.
“Then there’s the huge pressure of public opinion. Everyone expects Ianis to be at least Gica or close, but he’s not. He’s a talented intelligent footballer who does well with both legs, but at some point he has to get rid of the beautiful Hagi legacy and become Ianis. Until now, wherever he went, he was the son of Gica Hagi.”
Ciutacu was full of praise for how Steven Gerrard has treated Hagi so far, explaining that ‘no coach gave him more credit’ than the former Liverpool midfielder, but admitted that if the Rangers manager ends up keeping him on the bench, ‘then there’s a problem’.
We’ll have to wait and see what comes of all this, since it’s still very early on in the young playmaker’s Ibrox adventure, but if there’s a manager who knows all about managing expectations, it’s probably the one Hagi currently has, and there will be hope this is just a way of giving him a reset to help him come back stronger for the second half of the season.
