Abdallah Sima became Rangers' fifth summer signing when he put pen to paper on a season-long loan from Brighton last week.
The 22-year-old is a player well known to Michael Beale and the Ibrox faithful after starring in the Slavia Prague side that defeated Rangers in the Europa League in 2021.
The Senegalese spent last season on loan at French outfit Angers but how did he perform and what can Rangers fans expect?
Tom Wiseman is an Angers correspondent for Get French Football News, he provided some in-depth insight into Rangers' new boy.
Angers had a poor season overall last season, why?
Mismanagement and power struggles in the club and they sort of all accumulated into this horrendous season. I think it's one of the worst ever in the league. The club got 18 points the whole season, which is just one point above the record lowest ever. So a historically bad campaign.
How did Sima perform last season?
He was probably better towards the latter half of the season. It was probably because there was less pressure on the team because they knew they were going down. They had three coaches during the course of the season, the first two didn't really understand where to play Sima. I don’t know this for certain but there must be some kind of agreement that he got plenty of game time because a lot of the time they did play him as a sole striker, which just didn't work for him. He's not the kind of player to lead the line for a team. He needs some support with him. The third manager that came in, he played a 5-3-2 and he put him alongside somebody that could do the physical battle a little bit more because that’s what he did struggle with when he was just the sole striker. He struggled with the strength and the nature of the defenders in the league who just pushed him off the ball really. He needs a bit of support with somebody else there. He doesn’t really work much centrally, he works better further out wide. I remember seeing him a few times when he played for Slavia Prague and he was brilliant coming off the right. Some of his goals came when he came off the right. There was one late on in the season against Marseille. He beat the offside trap and it was a brilliant finish. Despite not getting many chances, some of his finishing was superb and his goal against Marseille was phenomenal.
Would he work better as part of a front two or playing on the right-hand side of a forward line?
I think he’s better off the right, that’s where he used to play when he played in the Czech Republic. He just needs other players to take defenders with them so he can face a defender one-on-one or even one-on-two because he’s a quick player but he just needs more support. Unfortunately, with the season Angers had, he never had that for most of the season. The season before last he was at Stoke on loan and he only played four games because he had a really bad injury so statistically wise while some of his performances weren’t brilliant just getting more game time is a positive and I’m sure moving to Rangers he’ll get more game time there.
Do you think he has the mentality to perform at a club like Rangers?
Angers were dreadful and you can see that in the performances with the mentality of the players but Sima was one of the ones that wasn’t affected too much. Some of the players by October were playing like they were already relegated. It did affect Sima but I wouldn’t have picked him out as one of the players whose head really dropped. But, obviously, it’s a very different environment between Rangers and Angers. He’ll enjoy it much more because Rangers will be competing for the title and it’s a brilliant atmosphere and brilliant support. He’s obviously got more pressure on him but I think just a healthier environment will do him a lot of good.
He was once being linked with Arsenal and Barcelona while at Slavia Prague, do you think he could reach those heights again?
That’s what I hope for because he was superb at Prague. You just wonder what that injury has done to his career in the long term. He’s still only 22 so he’s got a long career ahead of him. You’d hope he gets back to some of that form and if he does, he’ll be superb in Scotland. I really hope he does well.
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