STEVEN GERRARD has backed Juninho Bacuna to burst onto the scene with Rangers after admitting opportunities for the midfielder to impress may be 'imminent' at Ibrox.
Bacuna made his debut for the champions on Sunday as he came off the bench during the 1-1 draw at home to Motherwell.
It was a promising start to life in Light Blue for the 24-year-old as he showed some nice touches in the closing stages of a disappointing Premiership stalemate.
Bacuna could now get his chance to impress from the start on Wednesday night as Rangers host Livingston in the Premier Sports Cup.
And Gerrard is confident there is plenty more to come from the playmaker as he looks to make a name for himself in Glasgow following his summer switch from Huddersfield.
Gerrard said: “He’s looking more and more ready now. When he came in, we knew he hadn’t had a pre-season. He was training alone at Huddersfield.
“He’s got major talent. You could see some of the positions he picked up, some of the little combinations he’s looking for.
“Okay, he might be looking at me and thinking ‘I want more game time’, which is a good place to be in.
“There’s going to be an opportunity for him very soon because he’s looking more ready now than when he first came.
"He’s fitter, he’s more robust and he knows a little bit more about our style and how we want to play now. So I think more opportunities for him are imminent.”
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