Ex-Rangers title-winning winger Brandon Barker has lifted the lid on his difficult Ibrox career.
Barker spent two seasons at Rangers and was part of Steven Gerrard’s Scottish Premiership-winning side of 2020/21, but the 28-year-old has now opened up on his struggles in Glasgow, insisting the stature of the club proved to be a reality check.
“It’s a phenomenal club,” Barker admitted. “You don’t realise how big until you get there.”
Barker, who spent over a decade at English champions Manchester City as a youth, has struggled to get his career back on track after his Gers contract was mutually terminated in January 2022.
Since then he has featured fleetingly for English Championship side Reading, League Two Morecambe, and a brief reunion with his former Hibernian boss Neil Lennon at Cypriot club Omonia Nicosia in between.
The English winger never kicked on at Ibrox despite a dream start and league debut goal against Livingston in September 2019. That season he was limited to just 13 appearances for Gerrard’s side, with eight of those coming off the bench.
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Barker made another 13 appearances the following season, a historic year for the club as they finally clinched their 55th title after climbing back to the pinnacle of Scottish football. Yet despite picking up a Scottish Premiership winners medal he admits the celebrations were bittersweet having spent the second half of the campaign on loan to Oxford United in English League One.
He told The Athletic: “I was buzzing for the boys, but there were difficult moments. I would play a game and feel like I’d done enough to stay in and then I wouldn’t play for the next month.”
Rangers completed an invincible league season behind closed doors but Barker, who made just four starts, understands he struggled to grasp his opportunities.
“There were times when I just didn’t do enough – in games, especially," he said. "I’ve got nothing bad to say about the manager (Steven Gerrard). We actually got on. But he just mustn’t have fancied me as much as when he signed me.”
