Rangers defender John Souttar: My brother Aaron is my hero - he's in my thoughts every day

A sense of perspective continues to guide John Souttar in the early stages of his Rangers career. Any frustration at his inability to make an early impression at Ibrox following his summer transfer from Hearts paled into insignificance following the death of his brother, Aaron, last August from motor neurone disease at the age of just 42.

Rangers defender John Souttar is just back from injury.

Souttar has been no stranger to the treatment table over the years, while his other brother Harry endured his own lengthy stint on the sidelines after rupturing his cruciate ligament. Neither man, however, could moan too loudly about their situation while Aaron was battling against that horrific, debilitating illness with a remarkable sense of stoicism and dark humour. Harry returned from that injury to star for Australia in the World Cup and then earn himself a January move to Leicester City but he is not the brother that Souttar will forever idolise.

“He [Aaron] was my hero growing up,” said the defender. “Still is. He was both our heroes really. He’s in our thoughts every day and everything we do is to make him proud. What he went through puts everything into perspective for me and my brother [Harry]. The injuries that he [Aaron] went through compared to us and there wasn’t one day where he sat and complained about anything in life.

“So for us to go through a football injury – how could we complain about anything when he’s sitting there still laughing and joking? Every day we would look at him and think, ‘how can he go through this and not complain for two years?’ Yeah, we’ve got a bad knee or a bad Achilles but we couldn’t complain when he was going through that.”

John has followed Harry by getting a tattoo done of Aaron on his arm, ensuring a day will never go by without their brother being in their thoughts. “It’s just something for him to always be there with you. He was there when I signed for Rangers and was absolutely buzzing, came in the Blue Room and things like that. Now he’ll always be with me – and Harry too – for every big moment in our lives.”

Souttar hopes there will be plenty of those big moments still to come. He admits he played in the opening league game of the season against Livingston before he was ready and paid the price. Now fit again, his task will be to somehow prise apart the central defensive partnership of Connor Goldson and Ben Davies.

“Signing for Rangers you have all these expectations in your head about how it’s going to go,” Souttar added. “Then obviously it didn’t pan out that way for one reason or another, starting with Scotland and bringing an injury into [the Rangers] camp. So at the start of pre-season I was always playing catch-up and unfortunately the injury took a bit longer than I’d hoped for.

“You’re probably not 100 per cent honest with the medical staff as you’re coming here and want to show everyone what you can bring to the club. It’s just in my character to play through these sorts of things. Looking back I should have said not to play.

“Now I just want to concentrate on doing everything I can to push the two boys and get involved in the team. People probably will say I’m injury prone but you’ve got to be mentally strong. You’ve got to believe in yourself.”