When Manchester United host Rangers under the Old Trafford lights to resume their Europa League campaign, Amad will be up against familiar opposition.
Amad spent a short loan spell at Rangers in 2022 when he was just starting to establish himself as a senior football player.
During his time at the club, Rangers won the Scottish Cup but it goes without saying that the Amad who played for them couldn’t be more different from the current one.
In fact, Amad’s loan spell at the Ibrox Stadium was looked at as a failure at the time due to some factors beyond his control.
We spoke to Cameron Willis, a Rangers fan and a writer for Rangers News about his thoughts on Amad – the player he was then, the player he’s now, and whether this rise was predictable.
Rangers fan on Amad
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had quickly made his mind up that Amad wasn’t ready for the rigours of the Premier League every week so a loan move was searched.
Near the end of the 2021 January window, the Ivorian was sent to Rangers for his first taste of consistent senior football. Or so they thought…
Amad played just 502 minutes of football across 13 games in those six months, scoring thrice. His personal peak arguably came on his debut when he scored.
Willis, however, took a holistic view of things and said Amad might have benefitted from having that experience early on, with glimpses of his potential clear even then.
He said: “Amad certainly had an interesting spell at Rangers but ultimately failed to live up to the hype at Ibrox. A chasing at Celtic Park resulted in Giovanni van Bronckhorst taking Amad out of the team and it wasn’t until towards the end of the loan stint that we started to see the Ivorian’s quality.
“He’d scored in back-to-back matches against Dundee United and Hearts and it was clear the kid had obvious talent.
“But there was a distinct lack of experience during that spell with Rangers, and although that had a bearing on our expectations falling short, it was probably a strong experience for Amad at the time.
“As for the Europa League Final, to this day Rangers fans wonder ‘what if’ with regards Amad, who was benched for now Birmingham City forward Scott Wright in Seville.
“Off the park, the winger really embraced the fans and the culture at Rangers and to this day the club’s supporters have a bit of a soft spot for him.”
Amad will be driven to face Rangers
From Willis’ comments, it’s clear that the Scottish side got a raw and inexperienced version of Amad, who wasn’t then helped by factors beyond his control.
Still, his professionalism and his ability to form a bond with the fans was clear then and is clear now.
Amad is in a purple patch of his life so he’s undoubtedly be looking forward to the opportunity of showing Rangers the talent they once had in their ranks.
It will be a unique position where both sets of fans will welcome him with open arms. He will hope that the happy sentiment remains in just one set of fans when the full-time whistle goes!
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