Hutton, not Mutton

[Danny 9]

Rangers’ fans were spoiled at the beginning of 9IAR with the acquisition of one of England’s greatest-ever right-backs in the shape of the outstanding Gary Stevens. Indeed, one of the biggest complaints among supporters and a long-running sore point is that no successor has come close to adequately filling the void the Englishman’s departure left. That covers well over a decade of football, and pretenders have come and gone, notably the controversial Fernando Ricksen, but no suitable replacement was ever secured.

The fact that the best full-back the club has boasted since Stevens’ was the Dutchman Arthur Numan whose reign not only occurred around 8 years later, but whose position was on the opposite side of the defence gives some indication of the difficulty in replacing Stevens.

It goes without saying no one has come close to replacing Stevens. However, during Alex McLeish’s time in the Rangers’ hot-seat a youngster by the name of Allan Hutton made a subtle breakthrough from the youth sides to the first team.

No one was going overboard about his abilities, but it did seem like there was potential within him to finally provide a solution to the long-standing right-back problem. Perhaps he was not going to emulate the sheer quality of Stevens, but nevertheless the progress he was making was indicative of a player who had the right stuff to make that position his own for a substantial period of time. Of course he had to shift the Dutchman Ricksen who had been signed for many millions by McLeish’s predecessor Dick Advocaat and was undeniably first choice although not strictly highly rated. There was definitely an opening there should any competitor to Ricksen look capable of playing first team football regularly over the Dutchman.

Until, that is, a fateful afternoon at Ibrox when the hosts entertained Kilmarnock and a poorly executed tackle from Hutton left the youngster with a broken leg.

Out for the season if not longer, Hutton saw all his dreams evaporate before him as he had to bestride the long and lonely road to recovery as Ricksen enjoyed a solid run in that position without a threat.

When he finally returned to action, he appeared to have lost a lot of the potential he previously boasted. Gone was the sharp, fluid Hutton, and he had been replaced by a sluggish, naïve, mediocre and criminally indecisive right-back. When on the ball, his distribution was chronic, and his control was average at best. This was never shown more distinctly than the Villarreal away leg where he had nothing short of a nightmare; ‘out of his depth’ did not begin to sum it up.

He remained in the side however, such was the poverty of competition for that berth, with only Alan Lowing as competition, but being so young at 17 he was not a serious possibility yet.

In July 2006 new manager Paul Le Guen made a number of signings in the transfer market, and one of them was the introduction of Manchester United’s young right-back Phil Bardsley. The local lad found himself swapping the Red Devils for the Bears on a six-month loan, with option to extend.

And he did not take long to look the part. The Englishman had solid positional sense, good distribution, composure on the ball and was not afraid to tackle. Indeed, he very much appeared to be a solution. However, one fateful match at Easter Road when he got himself needlessly sent off for refusal to move at the referee’s behest saw the end of his career at Ibrox, for it was followed by the now-infamous ‘training ground incident’. Bardsley allegedly tackled Thomas Buffel heavily, which upset the manager Le Guen as he had introduced a policy of no-tackles in training.

This opened the door for Hutton to take his place back, but there appeared to be no improvement from the Scot, who was now in that berth by default, as Le Guen had made it pretty clear Bardsley was out of the picture. Indeed, he was shipped backed to Manchester the following Christmas, leaving only Lowing again as competition for Hutton.

However, after the astonishing events of January which led to Le Guen’s departure and Walter Smith’s return to the Marble Staircase, Hutton almost became a new player overnight in the eyes of many supporters.

Somehow, he appeared quicker, sharper, far more willing to work hard, and now ran the flanks like a man possessed. His decision making had vastly improved, and he now boasted superb control on the ball, making some impressive runs in advanced positions. His own sense of awareness had also improved significantly, knowing when to retreat back and when to bomb the opposition defences.

Many fans argue that he showed these improvements under Le Guen, but perhaps that does not matter – the fact that he had improved regardless of whose tenure it was under is surely the most important statistic.

It is incredibly premature to even mention him in the same breath as Stevens; he has a lot of work to be even half as good as that eminent professional. But it is clear to many that Hutton is a new player regardless of when the improvement occurred; fit, hungry, and much more intelligent with his game, Hutton is developing beautifully.

He does, however, have a significant downside to his mentality, and that is his occasional reckless red mist, similar to his predecessor Ricksen. He seems to want to let his occasional frustrations out via an elbow etc, and this is simply not good enough and he must cut it from his repertoire. In Saturday’s ICT encounter, there was another incident where he clearly lashed his right elbow out, or back. Now, he did not strike his opponent, and one must hope he realised what he was doing and stopped himself, as it was not a full-blooded attempt, and that he is learning to control his urges.

This is Hutton’s only blot though, and he is otherwise developing as a fine right-back who so many supporters had given up on completely as simply not good enough for the jersey.

May his progress continue.

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