SCOTT Allan continues to be a player of infinite possibilities.

Football clubs have always been prepared to pay a premium for that priceless, uncertain commodity called potential and never more so than during these times of austerity. No wonder the mercurial Hibs playmaker, now 23, couldn't resist a smile when he heard Dundee United were back in for him on deadline day.

This is the very same club, you will recall, which Allan joined from Cambuslang Ajax at the age of nine, consistently standing out in the youth ranks, yet leaving for West Brom in January 2012 for £300,000 after an acrimonious fall-out with manager Peter Houston. By the end, with Allan feeling worthy of being made one of the team's highest-paid players on the strength of just four first-team starts, things had degenerated to the point where Allan was claiming the manager was belittling him in front of the other players and threatening to "make him disappear off the face of the earth".

Since then, some critics would probably say Allan has done enough of that under his own steam. Despite the odd flashes - there was a decent period on-loan at Portsmouth in late 2012 and two goals on his full debut for Birmingham - he didn't play a single first team match at the Hawthorns and people were queuing the length of Leith Walk to tell Alan Stubbs not to sign the player last summer. He doesn't have enough awareness of the defensive side of the game, they said, and was a headache waiting to happen off it.

Thankfully for all parties, the Englishman ignored such exhortations. Rather than focus on what the player cannot do, he stresses what he can. The 2014-15 season still has time to run but it may just go down as the point where that infamous untapped potential of Allan's started to coalesce into reality.

It is not before time - as Eoin Jess found, some time, at around the age of 23,24 it only invites ridicule to continually speak about a player's unfulfilled promise - and neither has it been an accident. It has taken series man hours from Hibs and Stubbs to maximise it. Not only has the manager calmly found a way to accommodate his mercurial skillset in his starting line-up, academic experts have been drafted in to alleviate the effects of the player's diabetes. Consequently, the player has less body fat than ever before, even if, as his manager drily points out, that means he is spending even more time in front of the mirror.

For the record, the player himself isn't sure if this season at Hibs represents the best he has ever played. But it is certainly the most he has ever played. Thirty-two appearances, 25 of them starts, by mid-March comfortably outstrips any of his previous seasonal tallies.

"That was interesting," said Allan, recalling the deadline day bids from United, all of which went unaccepted as the Tannadice club turned to their former player in a vain attempted to replace Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay Steven. "It was funny. Obviously that's the club I was at from the Under-9s, from when I first went in to train. A lot of people forget that. I had a laugh when I saw they were in for me and it's nice they wanted to sign me again. But I was never thinking about leaving. I've loved every minute here and I have a good connection with the fans and the coaches. I think I have got better as a player and better as an all-round professional here.

"For me coming in, it was just about getting a season under my belt, seeing how I was fitness and sharpness wise," he added. "I've been fine so far and that's what I needed in my career. But I still don't think I've reached anywhere near my potential. You only see that as you go up through the levels and I think I can still go up a few levels. I'd like to do that with Hibs."

So what exactly, then, it is fair to expect from Allan in the remainder of his career? Well, with all obvious disclaimers in place, it is a measure of the technical ability at his disposal and the mercury running through this player's veins that the two names Stubbs can find by way of comparison are his former Everton youth player Ross Barkley, and his former Everton team-mate Paul Gascoigne, the same man incidentally who Allan grew up idolising. An equally maverick team-mate was Thomas Gravesen, although it was a nod to the efforts of the likes of Scott Robertson, Dylan McGeouch and Fraser Fyvie when Stubbs this week relived the joke going around Goodison at that time that Real Madrid should have signed his follically-challenged midfield team-mate Lee Carsley instead for all the thankless work that he got through.

"You have to decide which side of fence you sit on," said Stubbs. "Some people will find it frustrating to have a player like him, I find it the difference. I'm prepared to allow him the flicks and the lapses in concentration where he does something sloppy because I know the next pass could be the one that wins the game.

"I played with probably the biggest of all, Gazza," the Englishman added. "I'm not saying Scott Allan is like Gazza but he has that in him and he could play at a much higher level. It was the same with Ross Barkley at Everton. We had to play an extra one in midfield just because of what he gives with the ball, whereas he doesn't always give you that without it, so you need an extra body. Or you play him as a No 10, where the emphasis isn't on his defensive side.

"I don't want to put them in the same bracket because they're at different levels, but Scotty has done very well. What you find with some players who have ability, is that they decide how far they are going to go because of the sacrifices they are willing to make to go to that next level. Did he make those sacrifices when he was 19, 20, 21? I think if Scott was honest he would probably say no."

The club's last two meetings with today's opponents Rangers only illustrate the point. While Allan contributed handsomely in a fine team effort in the 4-0 humbling at Easter Road, his involvement in the 2-1 victory at Ibrox could be distilled into one moment, the eye-of-the-needle pass which led to Jason Cummings' opening goal. "When he came off that night his first word to me was 'sorry' because he knew he could have had a bigger impact in the game," said Stubbs. "While he hasn't played well, he created the first goal. Maybe we wouldn't have had another player who would have seen that pass.

"You have to understand that he is diabetic so you have to be careful with his diet and the mood swings which sometimes can come in," he added. "Not in a bad way but if he is feeling down on sugar then it can affect his performance. Scotty had to be more professional in everything. Not just his football, but respecting his diabetes, because it is not something you take lightly."

Having been offered the player this summer, Rangers fans may look wistfully at the 23-year-old today and think what might have been. But the most tantalising aspect for Allan remains exactly what it has always been: what he still might be.