Michael Beale has opened up on the reasoning behind sending James Sands back to New York City after a heart-to-heart with the US international.
The midfielder - often deployed in central defence for Rangers - cut his time in Glasgow short as he returned to the MLS earlier this week.
And Beale has revealed that the player had come to him to seek clarity over his future and whether Rangers intended to activate a permanent signing clause.
Beale admitted Rangers were not likely to sign Sands on a permanent contract and agreed to cut short his move to return to NYCFC where he had game-time assurances.
"James, came to speak to me about four weeks ago," said Beale of the sequence of events leading to Sands premature exit. "He's a midfielder that's had to play centre-back for us and when he's had to play there, he's done really well.
"Obviously, the MLS season was about to start. I think he had some assurances from that end that he would be a big player for them and I suppose the question that he was throwing out was, are we going to take up the option?
"Unfortunately, we weren't going to do that. Nothing against James and the way that he played, but we didn't feel we were going to take up the option and we had an agreement because of us only having two fit senior centre at the time that we'd get the final out of the way and then he could go back. So that's why he wasn't involved in the cup final.
"I didn't think it was fair to involve James over a player that's going to be here and that's it. They're the decisions that I've got to make.
"I really enjoyed working with him as a boy. I thought he gave his heart and soul. Every day he was a good teammate and certainly earlier in the season when we were qualifying for the Champions League and he was playing those games against PSV he did a really good job for the club in the time that was here, so we wish him well."
John Souttar returned to the Rangers squad for the victory over Kilmarnock with a cameo appearance - and Beale intimated the return of players from injury in defence factored into the Sands call.
"Yeah, of course, it was," he said of returning players being a factor. And look, John Lundstram played there. Young Leon King played there early in the season. So I feel now we're in a better place and the games are running down and it's hard.
"The boy's living a long way away from home. He knows it's not going to be in his future to be here. He looks around and thinks: 'Well, look, we've just signed two midfielders, I'm probably not going to get a go in midfield because I'm a loan player as well'.
"So I had to look at him face to face, man to man. And he asked me the question and I said, ‘yeah, you can but at a time that suits everybody rather than yourself'.
"I thought after that he was, in the three or four weeks after it, a real credit to himself. I thought he stuck to that plan and so did we. So as I say, we wish him well."
