McLaughlin Feeling Right At Home

JON McLAUGHLIN has thanked his Rangers teammates for making him so welcome at the club, and he reckons he’s already up to speed with Gers’ style of play.

After joining from Sunderland earlier this summer, McLaughlin has played and impressed in friendly matches with Lyon and Motherwell – making super saves in both.

He’s been very pleased with the pre-season he now has under his belt, and also the game time he has managed to date.

Speaking to RangersTV, he explained: “I think it has been very positive and it’s been great to be back involved and back training and playing football again.

“I feel I have settled-in well. Everyone here at the club has been brilliant – the players, the staff and everyone around the club has made me feel very welcome and have integrated me in.

“[The style of play] is obviously different to what I’ve been doing in the last couple of seasons, but it’s not something I don’t have the ability to deal with.

“It’s more playing out from the back and being more actively involved with your feet in football terms as well as just being the shotstopper.

“I have really enjoyed that side of it and getting to know the lads and how they want to play and their abilities as well as trying to build that bond between us as much as I can.”

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McLaughlin’s integration into the squad has seen him join the ever-growing ‘card school’, and he continued: “I got roped into that pretty quick! I already knew a few of the lads from Scotland internationals, and the rest of the group have been great with me and as a fairly experienced senior player, I’ve moved about a fair bit and I’m used to that first couple of months trying to find your place in a squad and in an environment.

“But it always helps when the players and the staff are so welcoming as well.”

Gers, of course, kick-off their Scottish Premiership season away to Aberdeen this weekend, with the game being played behind closed-doors.

It will be a strange experience for the Light Blues players not having the typically superb away backing at Pittodrie – but McLaughlin revealed part of the challenge taken on by the players in pre-season has been to get them used to playing without supporters.

He added: “It’s making sure we understand that, although it feels like a pre-season friendly atmosphere that it’s anything but.

“That has been the challenge over pre-season to make those games feel and try to understand that’s how league games and fully competitive games are going to feel – that same atmosphere and find ways to create the adrenaline and the drive yourselves on the pitch as you don’t have the crowd and the atmosphere to drag you through games or tell you when and when not to push or sit-back or whatever it is.

“It is all going to have to come from within from the team, and we are going to have to find ways to create that mentality going into the game.”