Steven Gerrard reveals 'offload' plan for Rangers captain James Tavernier as more game time lined up for Nathan Patterson

Rangers manager Steven Gerrard believes he can extend the top flight career of captain James Tavernier by rationing his first team appearances this season.

Rangers captain James Tavernier (left) is set to play fewer games for the Ibrox side this season with Nathan Patterson (right) given more starting appearances at right-back. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

Tavernier was left out of Sunday’s 2-1 win over Hibs at Ibrox on Sunday as Scottish international right-back Nathan Patterson stepped in to make his first Premiership start of the campaign.

Gerrard admits it was not an easy decision to omit Tavernier who has been instrumental in the progress achieved by Rangers since the former Liverpool and England captain took charge of the club in the summer of 2018.

But Gerrard’s faith in the ability of 19-year-old Patterson, who will join up with the Scotland squad this week for the World Cup qualifiers against Israel and Faroe Islands, now makes him more comfortable with the prospect of rotation in the right-back position.

He feels too much has been asked over the past three seasons of Tavernier, who will celebrate his 30th birthday at the end of this month, with previous deputies in his position such as Jon Flanagan and Matt Polster unable to offer the quality of cover which is now there in the shape of outstanding prospect Patterson.

“It is difficult (leaving James out),” said Gerrard. “It would have surprised an awful lot of people, which I appreciate. Tav is capable of playing 55-60 games, I know he is, because he is a machine and very robust.

“But he had an injury at the back end of last season and as a manager and a staff, we feel in the first three and a bit years we have overused James.

“We’ve had back-ups to come in and try and offload him but we haven’t had the back-up of the quality of Nathan Patterson who is a Scottish international.

“So we’ve got just as much trust in James as we have in Nathan and vice versa. We want maybe less games out of James but with more quality and foot to the floor.

“I believe that will help him career-wise and it will certainly help the group. The boys have to trust us with the decisions we’ve made and hopefully it will pay dividends at the end of the season.”

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