COLL Donaldson's specialist subject might as well be Rangers' 2016 close season signings. The Dundee United defender shared a dressing room with Joey Barton, Clint Hill and Niko Kranjcar during his time at Queen's Park Rangers and reckons all three have the potential to prove top class additions to the Ibrox side's squad. While Kranjcar, whose last club is New York Cosmos, has yet to conclude his deal, the other two have and Donaldson doesn't see why this old pals act couldn't take Rangers all the way to the Ladbrokes Premiership title in their first season back in the top flight.
“I trained and played with Joey and also with Niko and Clint as well," said Donaldson. "I don’t think they will be coming to Rangers to finish third or fourth, they’ll be coming to win the league. Joey is the most important one out of the three of them and if he has the season he had last year then Rangers will be a very tough side to beat.”
Barton, who made it into the Championship team of the year, is also the most controversial of the three, having wasted little time in dominating the headlines by claiming that Celtic captain Scott Brown isn't "in the same league" as him. Donaldson, who played only once for the QPR first team after being signed by Harry Redknapp from Livingston as a 19-year-old, feels that such comments are less an attempt to deliberately antagonise the opposition than simply a man speaking his mind in an unfiltered manner.
“I think that’s just what he thinks," said Donaldson, speaking as league sponsors Ladbrokes unveiled the 2016-17 fixtures. "He’s one of these guys that just says what he thinks. But it will build up the Old Firm and the first time Celtic play Rangers, it’ll be a flash point and what everyone looks at.
"Barton’s record speaks for himself," the 21-year-old added. "Last year he was in the team of the Championship and he will bring a wealth of experience to Rangers and quality as well.
“It’s gone under the radar how good a player he is, I saw him first hand and I think he’s a brilliant signing for Rangers - that they’ve been able to persuade him to come up the road and try his hand at this."
Being a mentor and role model for the younger players at a club isn't the kind of thing that would always have been said about the 33-year-old midfielder, a man who admits he has quite a "rap sheet", but Donaldson feels the professionalism of both he and Hill display will rub off on the youth players at Murray Park.
"Joey was always one of the guys you could speak to, he would never shy away from you, he would never ignore you and was never an arrogant guy," said Donaldson. "He is very confident in his own ability, as you can probably tell with what he says. But he’s a really nice guy when you speak to him and he’ll be good for the younger ones.
“Clint is probably one of the best professionals I’ve ever seen first hand," the central defender added. "He’s 37 but he’ll train every day and be in the gym after training every day. He’s a really good leader, he knows what it is about and he’ll be a good link between the playing staff and the coaching staff.
“When we were playing Joey was in the changing room riling everyone up but it was a joint effort with Clint because they are both Scouse and they are mates. They ran the dressing room together and it’s quite bizarre they’ve ended up in the same place. It’ll be a strong changing room next year at Rangers."
Kranjcar completes the trio, and while he didn't always feature under Harry Redknapp at QPR, Donaldson feels he also has plenty to offer. “Niko is brilliant in terms of his ability, he’s up there with the best I’ve seen," the 21-year-old said. “I don’t know what his motivation is, when he was at QPR the gaffer left him out a bit and he was quite frustrated. But his ability is brilliant and if he’s able to show half of his ability then he’ll do really, really well for them."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here