John Souttar keen to prove his worth after ‘tough start’ to Rangers career

John Souttar is eager to get his Rangers career up and running at the second time of asking after missing a huge chunk of the season through injury.

After joining from Hearts in the summer the 26-year-old went off on his debut at Livingston last July with a stress fracture of his ankle.

The Scotland international, who has been bedevilled by injuries including Achilles problems throughout his career, made four brief substitute appearances for the Light Blues after another tough period of rehabilitation before starting for only the second time this season in the Old Firm derby last weekend.

Souttar, a late replacement for the injured Connor Goldson, was at fault for one of the Celtic goals in the 3-2 win for the Hoops but he is glad to be back in action.

And ahead of the home game against St Mirren on Saturday, where he will again take over from Goldson, he said: “It’s been a tough start to my Rangers career.

“It wasn’t how I envisioned it when I signed, it’s just one of these things. But I’m back now, I’m feeling good and I’m glad to be getting minutes on the park.

“I think it does help you to an extent because you’ve been there before.

“You know what it’s like to come back and the things you need to do but I think it was a more difficult one because you just signed for Rangers and you wanted to impress and prove to yourself and everyone else that you’re good enough to be here.

“I only knew the day before I was playing with Connor’s injury.

“It was my first start since the first game of the season. It was a difficult game to come back into, but just to play football again, I was buzzing to be back on the pitch.

“It was a frustrating period for me, but now I’m back I just need to do everything I can to stay in the team.

“It’s up to me now to go and take the opportunity and go and impress and show myself and everyone what I can do.

“I feel really good to be fair. I’ve been training for over a month, maybe two months now.

“Usually with my other injuries, I was straight back into the Hearts team, but obviously, here it’s a bit different.T here’s people in front of me that were doing well.

“It gave me that opportunity to build up properly and take a month or two months to come back. I’m feeling the benefits now because I feel really good physically.”