Walking alone wasn’t a worry for Ben Davies at Liverpool, not when he spent his six months at Anfield sitting among thousands of Scousers.
The Rangers defender thought he’d hit the jackpot when Jurgen Klopp handed him a dream move to Merseyside in January 2021. Brought in with the intention of plugging gaps in a backline decimated by injury, as it turned out the only thing the former Preston stopper ended up filling was a seat in the stand.
A debut for the then reigning Premier League winners never materialised, with eight unused substitute appearances the closest he ever got to pulling on a red jersey. By that summer, he’d been sent back to the Championship on loan at Sheffield United before eventually breaking his ties with Kop as he joined Gers at the start of the current campaign.
But far from viewing his brief Liverpool stint a waste of time, Davies made sure to soak up all he could from his position on the Anfield fringes. And it’s that glimpse behind the scenes at how things work at one of Europe’s elite clubs that the 27-year-old believes has allowed him to settle so successfully into Glasgow’s own pressure pot.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity and the experience,” insisted the centre-back. “It opened my eyes to the top level and what the best players do, day in, day out.
“It gave me life experience and now coming into Rangers off the back of it it’s definitely helped because I think if I’d come here without that step to Liverpool, it would’ve been a big eyeopener. I took from it how the elite people and teams in the world operate, how they prepare and the standards that are required around the whole club.
“That rubs off on you, even when you’re not playing. You benefit from that. I was up against these guys day in day out in training. When I was at Preston and playing Championship level you have an idea of what it would be like to reach the top. But to see it first hand was good for me.”
The arrival of Michael Beale has also had a beneficial effect on the defender. Since his return from injury in the Londoner’s second game in charge against Aberdeen he’s played every minute, forming an increasingly dependable partnership with Connor Goldson. But Davies reckons it won’t be until next season that the Ibrox faithful are treated to a look at the full extent of his abilities following a settling-in period beset by niggling injuries.
“What I want is a clear run to the end of the season and then a good pre-season and then we can see how I am,” he said. When I went to Liverpool I couldn’t get many minutes in the team.
“So when they were building up the team, doing 30 minutes, 45, 60 then 90, I was getting five or 10! So when I went on loan to Sheffield United and then here, I had to go from getting five to getting 90 minutes!
“Do people underestimate that? One hundred percent. When you get your break in the off season you do your running but that was the problem for me because I was doing running and then more running when I really needed to be playing some games so I could get my rhythm going.
“Did that contribute to the injuries I had this season? Yeah I think so because it happened two years in a row, here and at Sheffield United.”
In a season of ups and downs, injury frustration has been the one constant for Rangers.
Tom Lawrence has suffered more than most. A knock picked up in the early weeks of the campaign that was only expected to keep him out a couple of months has now become a season-ender.
It’s a bitter blow and no-one feels more for the ex-Derby skipper than Davies having seen for himself what the midfielder is capable of during their regular tussles down south.
He said: “It’s been disappointing as he’d settled really well and started the season well. We’ve all wanted Tom to get himself right and no matter how long it takes, we want to have him back right. That’s the decision they’ve now taken and hopefully Tom will be back to his best next year.
“You almost forget about him a little bit because he’s been out for so long but I’m sure he’s determined to have a smooth comeback. Pre-season will obviously be big for him in the summer.”
In the meantime, Beale has to hope the players fit and available to him can rebuild the momentum they were gathering before their Viaplay Cup Final loss to Celtic. Last week Gers hit the turbo button as they stormed past Hibs at Easter Road.
But they’d run out of oomph by the time the Light Blues laboured past Raith Rovers to reach the Scottish Cup semis. They head along the M74 today to face Motherwell but Davies admits it’s down to his side to find a way through the long jam at Fir Park if Stuart Kettlewell opts to park the bus.
He said: “Against Hearts and Hibs away, they’ve opened up a bit more and looked to play their game. But when teams have opened up a bit more against us we’ve been able to pounce on that.
“It’s not easy when teams sit in. I thought against Raith Rovers on Sunday it was actually quite extreme.
“But it’s never easy and even the best teams find it difficult against a low block. It’s something we just keep working on, working on our patterns, and try and improve on it.
“To be honest it hasn’t really surprised me that a lot of teams play that way against us. I’ve watched Scottish football for a while and have seen it quite a lot.
“I understand why teams play that way against us. They can see the flow of the games we play in, which is why they sit in. We just need to try and unlock the door.”
READ NEXT
