RANGERS have completed the signing of defender Jon Flanagan on a two-year deal.
The former Liverpool full-back, who has one cap for England, becomes manager Steven Gerrard's seventh signing of the summer after flying out to the club's pre-season training base in Andalucia to complete a medical.
The 25-year-old has a controversial past, having admitted to assaulting his girlfriend and been handed a 12-month community order at the start of this year.
But Rangers assistant manager Gary McAllister has said that Flanagan deserves the opportunity to rebuild his career.
“I feel that [he deserves a second chance]," McAllister said. "It was unacceptable, most definitely.
“I have a little bit of an in because I worked at Liverpool but it was unacceptable and a really poor decision that he made in that episode. But, he deserves a second chance.
“He showed remorse, he put his hand up and has taken his punishment. He wants to get on with his life and his football life.
“I haven’t worked with him directly but I know him from my time at Liverpool. Great lad, very approachable man, extremely hard working.
“He’s tough, unassuming, he is an old school full-back that can play either side, he can play two in a back four, three of a back five, a back three, so he is versatile.
“But the big thing is that we know him, we know his character and we think he can deal with 50,000. The expectation here is exactly the same as Liverpool."
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