When Walter Smith needed a player with the maturity and football IQ to sacrifice himself for the team as a central defensive midfielder he shelled out £2m for Kevin Thomson.
His steely presence over three fruitful years of Smith’s second reign would see the talents of captain Barry Ferguson, Steven Davis and Pedro Mendes flourish around him.
As current manager Michael Beale prepares for a crucial January transfer window that promises significant recruitment in his team’s engine room, Rangers Review writer IAIN KING asked Kevin to profile the perfect Gers midfield – and pick the three storied Light Blues players he feels would define the roles.
Kevin Thomson was sipping on a title-winning pint at a bar deep inside the marble halls of Ibrox when Walter Smith dropped the bombshell news.
It was April 2010 and Kyle Lafferty’s strike at Easter had set the seal on title no53.
The financial future of the club was uncertain, the manager was operating without a contract and for all the joy of the championship the storm clouds were beginning to gather.
Kevin recalled: “We’d just won the title and it was a night to remember.
“Allan McGregor was all over the floor dancing like a madman, Steven Naismith was belting out all the songs.
“I remember just looking around for a moment and taking it all in.”
The midfielder didn’t know it at that time but he was an asset Rangers were willing to sell and soon after 109 games, three years and five major trophies he was traded to Middlesbrough in a £2m deal that recouped the fee paid for him.
Kevin will never forget the impact the late, great Smith, who led that squad to the 2008 UEFA Cup Final defeat against Zenit Saint Petersburg, had on him.
He sighed: “Walter went around all of the players and Steven Whittaker and I were standing at the bar.
“He told us that he was done, his time was up and he was leaving and we didn’t need him anymore.
“There has been no-one else in my career who carried the weight of Walter. It was like a dagger to my heart when he said that.
“I told him I was going to need him until I was 35! As it turned out he stayed on for one more year and won another title and I left for Middlesbrough that summer.”
Kevin, though, will always have the comforting knowledge that he was a player Walter trusted in a key position in his side.
That’s why we felt 38-year-old Thomson, now one of Scotland’s brightest young emerging coaches who worked in the Rangers Academy before leading Kelty Hearts to the Division Two title, was the ideal candidate for this midfield assignment.
No.6: The Thomson Technical Profile
The back line feeds the midfield who feed the front line then the front line protects the midfield who protect the back line.
“Now, look, that might sound like a simple concept but I found that when I was in the Rangers Academy it was one that the players could easily understand and buy into.
“At Ibrox as a 6 you have to be very combative and quick to cover the ground and lock on.
“In truth, I wasn’t really taught that when I played at Gers but you learn quickly that if Steve Davis comes inside the pitch and Steven Whittaker or Alan Hutton takes off down the right then you must cover the gaps left behind them.
“We were trying to batter teams into submission but you have to be conscious of what happens when that move breaks down.
“So as a Rangers 6 you must be able to handle the ball but you must always look to look after your centre-back.
“You have to supply what is in front of you and protect what is behind you.
“The 6 has some of the hardest passes to make at Ibrox because if you go sideways or backwards you will get booed.
“Nine times out of 10 the fans want you to go forward and you will be looking to pass through a bank of four and into a congested bank of five.
“When you receive the ball, you will have 10 of them in front of you with blue jerseys trying to find little pockets of space.
“So you need an array of passing and you also need to have the mindset of being the player who can put out fires.
“You have to be ready to act when the switch flicks on us and you need to cover the ground quickly to snuff out danger.
“When I played we had big Davie Weir in defence and the full-backs would be Sasa Papac on the left, who was steady, but Whitty or Alan Hutton on the right who would bomb on and almost play like wingers.
“So I learned to gamble and hedge my bets, I would edge towards the right of the field and use my brain to cover so big Davie didn’t get exposed and dragged out to where he didn’t want to be.
“My reasoning was that if our cross went in high they would flick it out to where Sasa could cover.
“If it went in low their centre-back would kick it back to where it came from and I would be waiting in the gap the right-back had left behind him.
“That was me using my football brain and knowing that teams would try to get into a leg race with Davie at that stage of his career, so we stopped that at source.
“For me those are key facets of being a 6 at Rangers, they have to recognise that role and on the other side of the coin they have to be able to thread quick, slick passes forward.
“Even when Barry Ferguson was in his later years he would still have that enthusiasm to want to get into the box and join the attack.
“So although he wore 6 and people inside the club called him 6 I never really felt he was a 6!
“He is a front-foot footballer as is Steven Davis who is another that I loved playing with.
“Davo has played in that anchor role later in his career but in his younger days he would have been wasted there.
“He was one of our most attacking players in my Gers days as was Pedro Mendes who was another top-level operator.
“None of those players loved tackling or putting out fires, the ugly runs and the trackie-backie player? That was more my job.
“If you’d asked Ferguson, Mendes or Davis to play 6 in those days they’d have gone in the huff because they wanted to be more in the action and scoring goals!"
Kevin's Perfect 6 – Gennaro Gattuso
Signed by Walter Smith from Perugia as a 19-year-old, Rino was an all action midfielder but he was quickly jettisoned by Smith’s successor Dick Advocaat to Salernitana in a 4m deal that many questioned the wisdom of.
Rino played only 51 games for Gers but would go on to spend 13 years at AC Milan, snarling through 468 games for the Rossoneri, and he helped win the World Cup for Italy in 2006. Now 44, Gattuso is Head Coach of Valencia in Spain’s La Liga after also managing Milan and Napoli.
“Rino came in and trained with us at the tail end of his career and I recall that in those sessions he took no prisoners.
“He was still at AC Milan at the time and I remember thinking he was top drawer.
“I know choosing Gattuso will raise some eyebrows but he earned 73 caps for Italy and won the Champions League and the World Cup. He had a bit of a career!
“I found this one tough because there are so many midfield players that I admire from other Rangers eras like Jorg Albertz, Claudio Reyna and Giovanni van Bronckhorst but they are not really 6s.
“I’m too young to know what Jim Baxter would bring. And could we not just pick a no11 then I could get Brian Laudrup in!
“Seriously, I never really saw Ian Ferguson or Stuart McCall in-depth or Ian Durrant from the 9-in-a-row era.
“Before his knee injury, though, I feel from the footage I watch that Ian would have been an 8 or a 10 even though he adapted so well after that setback.
“So I feel it’s Gattuso at 6 because his tackling, his team ethic, his work rate would be the perfect mix with the other midfielders I have picked.”
No.8: The Thomson Technical Profile
“The 8 has to be the heart and soul of the team for Rangers, the driving force.
“They have to be chipping in with 12 to 15 goals a season and they must have half an eye on both sides of the game.
“The difference in the job description here with Rangers is that the punishment for turning the ball over is far more brutal in European football than it is domestically.
“So you have two different levels in the job criteria. That’s why Brahim Hemdani played behind Barry and me in Walter’s European games but in the domestic games you didn’t need him.
“If I was signing an 8 tomorrow for Rangers he would have more attacking DNA than defensive.”
Kevin's Perfect no.8 – Barry Ferguson
A born and bred Rangers fan turned player and captain who starred in midfield through 12 years and two stellar spells in a Light Blue jersey.
Now 44, Ferguson can reflect on a glory-laden career that saw him lead his club and country, win 15 major honours for his boyhood heroes and be named Player of the Year both by his fellow pros and the football writers.
“Barry is as good as any Scottish player in the last 25 years in my opinion.
“He broke into the Rangers team as a kid and was the captain of a collection of Dick Advocaat’s superstars at the age of 22.
“That’s not to do Darren Fletcher or Scott Brown any disservice but Barry could do it all.
“Now I wore 8 for Gers but I was a 6 and at times Barry would get bored and I would lend him the ball so he could get a touch.
“Barry would typify what I feel a Rangers no8 should be.
“He is the best of the best, off the cuff, a winner, a brilliant captain who took the weight of the club on his shoulders.
“Barry was Mr Rangers and he would get criticism even when he was our best player.
“I loved playing with him and we were good foils for each other.
“He was actually quite difficult to learn to play alongside because he wasn’t what I would call a disciplined midfielder. He was here, there and everywhere.
“You teach kids not to cross over as midfielders but Barry would make movements to get the ball from Sasa Papac at left-back which I could have seen as killing my space.
“Yet I knew my role, he was so good that I was there to complement and balance off him.
“I used my intelligence to work with him and to be honest I get frustrated when people just view me as a tackler in my days at Gers. There was more to it than that.
“People also forget that when we went to Celtic Park and won 4-2 it was the Mendes Show and Barry was out of that game. It was me, Pedro and Davis that day and we passed them off the pitch.
“They had Nakamura, Maloney and McGeady who were top players and Gordon Strachan teams always pass the ball so well.
“I understand to an extent how Barry is viewed by some fans because he will always speak his mind on Rangers. He loves the club so much and isn’t afraid to voice his opinion.
“Me? I loved him to bits as a player and a person.”
No.10: The Thomson Technical Profile
“At Rangers if you are the no10 you are a match-winner and a risk-taker, that dying breed of a midfielder who wants to get in the box.
“You need peripheral vision of what is around you because the likelihood is you will have to play one or two touch.
“My perfect 10 for Gers would also eliminate players either running with the ball and dribbling or playing a quick give and go.
“They’d need to drop a shoulder and be able to carry the ball and skip past players. When you beat one at Ibrox there might be 8 or 9 defenders waiting for you but the key is that you have created some space for someone else.
“So the profile is a razor-sharp risk-taker of a player who makes a difference.”
Kevin's Perfect 10 – Paul Gascoigne
GAZZA’S hat-trick against Aberdeen on the day he clinched eight-in-a-row for Rangers and the football he played for 18 unforgettable months under Walter Smith will always be treasured by those who witnessed it.
Now 55 the former England midfield genius has been troubled by both alcoholism and mental illness since he lost what he loved the most. Playing football.
“Gazza was unbelievable, when I first joined Gers we had Rangers TV through the Setanta deal.
“I would always have the late, great Sandy Jardine who was our player liaison asking me to do stuff for them.
“So you would see all these archived games of Gazza at his best and I would be watching him and thinking: ‘Wow, just how good was he?’
“I remember looking at that goal in the Aberdeen game in 8-in-a-row when he is running the length of the pitch with players hanging off him before scoring.
“So much strength, so much skill, so much desire to get past players and make a difference.
“Only Walter could have kept Gazza on the rails for as long as he did and he produced so many memorable moments.”
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