John Souttar fesses up to his big Rangers mistake and says he will need to show his mettle

A sense of perspective has served John Souttar well this past week. Handed just his second Rangers start in last Saturday’s Old Firm derby, it was his weak back pass to Allan McGregor that was intercepted by Jota and then rolled into the net to hand Celtic a two-goal advantage in a game they went on to win 3-2 to move 12 points clear at the top.

Souttar had waited a long time for that opportunity after sustaining an ankle stress fracture not long after arriving at Ibrox from Hearts and doesn’t want that error to define him. The central defender immediately put his hands up to acknowledge what was an atypical moment of complacency, one that arrived not long after partner Ben Davies had been similarly slack in gift-wrapping an opportunity that was polished off by Kyogo Furuhashi.

Souttar will get the chance to make immediate amends this weekend in his first home start against St Mirren with Connor Goldson again ruled out due to injury. The Rangers support are still waiting to see for themselves the attributes that made Souttar seem such a shrewd pick-up from Hearts last summer and he is eager to demonstrate what he is all about.

“Going into the game I thought this was why I signed for Rangers, to play in these big games, Old Firm derbies and in Europe,” Souttar said of his Celtic Park experience. “I only knew the day before that I would be playing because of Connor’s injury. It was my first start since the first game of the season so it was a difficult game to come back into.

Rangers' John Souttar shows his frustration after a slack back pass allowed Celtic to score in last weekend's derby.

“It was brilliant to be involved in that atmosphere. As a team I thought we did well in parts of the game. But obviously two mistakes cost us. My mistake for the third goal was poor. It’s one of those things, everyone has them in football don’t they? A slack pass or something else going wrong. I held my hands up and said it was my fault. I had to as that was my responsibility.”

Souttar has endured far worse in recent years in both his personal and professional life and has vowed to dig into the depths of his mental resolve to put that high-profile howler behind him. “Every footballer goes through something similar, a mistake or an injury or anything,” he added . “And it’s all about how you react in football isn’t it? How you move on from the bad moments.

“Anyone can go and play a good game. It’s easy. It’s the moments where you’ve made a mistake or something's not quite right where you’re judged and people see how mentally strong you are. It’s up to me to react at the weekend and go and put in a good performance. You can’t let it affect you as it’ll happen to everyone.

“This is my first real opportunity to be in the team. It’s up to me now to go and take it and go and impress. In the past with other injuries I would be straight back into the Hearts team. Being here it’s a bit different. There are people in front of me doing well. That gave me time to build up properly and now I’m back in and feeling really good physically.”