IAN McCALL has worked with his fair share of promising youngsters from Ibrox over the years. As a former player himself, the Partick Thistle manager has a strong relationship with Rangers and has used it to his advantage on plenty of occasions.

Since returning to Firhill as manager a little over two years ago, seven players have made the short journey from Govan to Maryhill. With the exception of Zak Rudden, recently snapped up by Dundee, all were loan moves. Lewis Mayo, Jamie Barjonas, Kieran Wright, Rhys Breen, Mayo (again), Jake Hastie and most recently Andy Firth have all been brought in on temporary deals during McCall’s tenure, with varying degrees of success.

Mayo only managed three appearances during his first stint at Thistle before the season was called as the pandemic first broke out in Scotland and he spent the following campaign on loan at Dunfermline. His time at East End Park was a little hit-and-miss but since returning to Thistle he has struck upon the most valuable defensive characterstic of them all: consistency.

“Lewis has been terrific,” McCall says. “The big thing about Lewis Mayo is … any of the players that have come from Rangers or Celtic for me over the years have always been really grounded and humble people.

“That’s what Lewis is and he’s done really well. He has a lot of attributes and I think he still has a future at Rangers. There’s a chance he’ll still be here next season if we manage to go up, who knows. He’s been part of a back four where we’ve interchanged it a few times but his level of consistency has been really good. He’s still got a lot of things to learn – we were just speaking there about communicating more. But he’s still only 21 which is very, very young for a centre-back.”

Mayo’s time in Maryhill thus far has been pretty impressive. After an initial spell where he featured all across the backline, McCall eventually settled on using the 21-year-old as a centre-half. Last season at Dunfermline, he featured regularly as a defensive midfielder and in defence.

His move infield to play in central defence alongside Tunji Akinola – another promising young defender who arrived at Thistle after leaving West Ham last summer – coincided with a run of eight games where the Jags didn’t ship a single goal. It was a club record for consecutive clean sheets and Mayo played the full 90 minutes in all but one match, that he missed as he was part of Scot Gemmill’s Scotland Under-21s squad.

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The results speak for themselves. Mayo has established himself as a key figure in the Thistle starting XI and his influence grows with every passing week. Of the 25 games Mayo has played during his loan stint, 13 have ended with clean sheets. He wins 78.3 per cent of his defensive duels – the sixth-best rate of any player in the Championship – and averages 5.93 interceptions per 90 minutes played, the 15th-highest tally of anyone in the second tier.

Mayo is happy to be settled and getting a run of games in his preferred position but the defender reckons his stints in other areas of the park have made him a more rounded player.

“Both experiences have been good,” he explains. “It’s definitely a good learning experience as a young player to play different positions. That has definitely helped me a lot and I take confidence from that.

“Having the ability to play with both feet and the awareness to play in different areas on the park will definitely help me. But looking forward now, the best thing for me is to play my position and play it every week. I’ve been building on that this season and taking pride in a team that’s been successful.

“[The clean sheet record] is another thing to take confidence from. You still need a little bit of luck at the end of the day and in a couple of games we didn’t get that. But we can use that going forward – even if we’re not on the same sort of run, there’s no reason we can’t do that again. It’s built on good habits and good discipline throughout the team.”

Those good habits have been instilled in Mayo from a young age. Since the age of 10 he has progressed through the underage ranks at Rangers, featuring for the club’s B team in the Challenge Cup and getting his first taste of continental football in the UEFA Youth League.

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Coupled with his experience for the national team’s Under-21s, Mayo feels he has been getting the best of both worlds in terms of his development. The chance to play against the continent’s top young players for club and country has allowed him to work on the tactical side of the sport, while his loan spells at Dunfermline and Thistle have provided a crucial grounding in the men’s game.

“Coming through at Rangers and with my experiences with Scotland, you play against some big names in terms of teams and countries,” Mayo explains. “It trains you not to be scared of anyone. It instils a mindset where it’s all about what you do, not what they do – if you perform, you can beat anyone. You learn that confidence and trust in the team that you’re in.

“It can be a bit of a switch sometimes. The Championship is men’s football and it’s a very, very competitive league. Whoever is bottom of the league can easily beat whoever’s top, there isn’t a big gap there. Anyone can beat anyone. You need a really competitive mindset to survive and succeed in the Championship.

“At 21s, sometimes it’s less physically demanding and there are fewer duels each game. Some of the boys aren’t as big or aren’t fully developed but equally, you’re playing against some of the best players in Europe. There are a lot of good coaches and a lot of teams that are well set up, so it is a different sort of stimulus tactically. But as a young player it’s all good experience.”

Mayo is a defender first and foremost but is growing in confidence with the ball at his feet. It was the Scotland Under-21 internationalist’s bursting run from deep against Kilmarnock that led to Thistle’s equaliser last month. With the Killie leading and the game approaching full-time, Mayo galloped forward with the ball, driving through until he was 30 yards from goal, sliding it across to Ross Docherty for the Thistle skipper to slam the ball home and claim a crucial point in the title race (around about the 3:55 mark in the video below).

The ability to drive out from the back and maintain your composure on the ball while taking the occasional risk is a valuable attribute for a modern centre-half. It’s not a prerequisite for the position but if you can make a habit of it, it’s a rather sizeable string to add to your bow. It’s an area of his game that Mayo has always paid close attention to and one that will surely catch the eye of Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

He recalled: “I’ve always been brought up to be comfortable with both feet and to trust myself on the ball. If the game demands that we’re going to play from the back or try and create chances from deeper, there shouldn’t be any hesitation. I want to trust myself and help the team that way.

“Against Kilmarnock – I don’t know what they were doing tactically in terms of their shape but they completely opened up. I tried to take advantage of that. I did a lot of work to get the ball there but to be fair, Doc did a lot of work to put it in the back of the net.

“Part of taking risks is learning things you can do that can get you out of trouble if something goes wrong. The rule of thumb is to always put your body between the ball and the man – the same way a striker would, or anyone who’s trying to win the ball.

“Playing from the back isn’t just about one person, it’s something that comes from the whole team. It comes from where everyone is standing on the pitch, how everyone is moving towards the ball and attitude: everyone needs to be brave enough. I’d say in our team and our squad we’ve got a lot of players who believe in each other and want to get involved.”

As a player on loan from Ibrox, Mayo still does the odd bit of gym work with Rangers but all of his training on the pitch is done with Thistle. Regular feedback from Rangers’ loan manager Billy Kirkwood helps the defender with his development, while McCall’s input is also helping Mayo to improve.

“The club say to me that they see everything I do,” Mayo said. “Billy Kirkwood is the loans manager so he’ll come to some of my games and if not, he’ll watch them and then feed back to me. Guys like Ross Wilson and Gary McAllister have done that in the past as well. They keep an eye on me.

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“I get the feedback from Rangers after every game but Ian McCall is watching me every day in training. I’ve got to say I’m very grateful for the confidence and belief he’s had in me.

“He’s been really good with me. I’ve played every game I’ve been fit for this season and that’s something I take a lot of confidence from. He’s got a lot of experience in football. He’ll tell me what I’m doing well, what I’m not doing well and what he wants for his team.”

Mayo will spend the remainder of the season playing his part in Thistle’s bid for back-to-back promotions and there is one aspect of his game he is looking to work on in particular. His goal from a corner against Hamilton in the 1-0 win in November was Mayo’s first in the senior game and he wants to become more of a threat at attacking set-pieces. The Jags have scored eight goals from corners in the league this season – more than any other team – and he feels that with a little hard work, he can add to his tally.

“I think it’s a case of building on what I’ve done so far in terms of discipline and maintaining that relentless attitude as being part of a good defence,” Mayo adds.

“For me, one thing I can definitely improve on is to add more goals. I’ve scored once this season, my first goal, but we are a team that has been a good threat at set-pieces this season. I’ve definitely had a few chances to score and I haven’t taken them so if I could add a few more goals somewhere, that’s going to help the team a lot.”