Comparing Jack Milne to John Souttar at this stage of their careers really doesn’t add up, and it says more about frustration around the squad than it does about either player. There’s a bigger point here about the Scottish quota and what’s realistically available.
Experience and levels are not the same thing
On one side you’ve got Milne, a young defender still learning his trade. He has a handful of senior starts at Aberdeen and a small taste of minutes for Scotland’s under-21s. Promising, yes. Ready to walk straight into Rangers’ back line and instantly be an upgrade on Souttar? Nowhere near it, in my opinion.
On the other side you’ve got Souttar, a full international with hundreds of senior games behind him, who has played at a high level for club and country. You can criticise certain aspects of his game, you can say we might eventually need better if we want to properly kick on in Europe, but you can’t seriously pretend Milne is already the better option right now.
That’s where the comparison falls down. It skips past the jump in pressure, expectation and scrutiny that comes with playing for Rangers every week. Not every decent SPFL prospect is automatically ready for that.
The real question: who is actually better and Scottish?
This is the crux of it. If the argument is that Souttar should be replaced, fine. But replaced by who, realistically, that is Scottish and genuinely better at this moment in time?
That’s a very small pool before you even look at transfer fees, wages and whether the selling club would actually do business with Rangers. It’s easy to say "just sign someone else", but when you tighten the filters to "Scottish, better than Souttar, available and affordable", the names list shrinks quickly.
Milne, for me, is much more in the category of someone you might bring in to develop, to compete for minutes, and to see where he is in a year or two. Not as a like-for-like mainstay, starting every big game from day one.
Harry Kane and the myth of the trophy test
The Kane example sums up another lazy argument that pops up in football chat. For years people tried to label Harry Kane as some kind of failure because he hadn’t lifted a trophy at Spurs. Then, as soon as he leaves, Spurs finally win something. It’s almost comic.
The reality is obvious. There are loads of top-class players who don’t end up with league titles on their CV. Individual quality and medals won are not the same thing. Context matters. In Kane’s case he ran into stronger, richer Premier League clubs at a time when Spurs were always punching up financially.
You can draw a rough parallel with Scotland. Since Rangers won 55, Celtic have largely been the stronger, more settled side. That doesn’t mean every Rangers player in that period is a failure, just as it didn’t mean Kane wasn’t elite because he didn’t have a league medal at Spurs.
So if we’re going to debate Souttar, Milne or anyone else in this squad, it has to be on ability, suitability and what’s actually possible in this market, not just on easy comparisons or how many trophies they’ve got beside their name.
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