Portland Timbers assistant boss Liam Ridgewell is certain Kevin Kelsy can shoulder the weight of Ibrox expectations, praising the £9.5m striker's relentless work ethic and quiet character.
Work ethic and character
At Portland Timbers, the sight of Kevin Kelsy working overtime in the gym became a daily occurrence. There were times when they'd have to drag the Venezuelan away from the bench press and treadmill to ensure he remained fresh for MLS action.
But it's exactly that commitment to bettering himself that has convinced Ridgewell the new Rangers striker can cope with the demands of the Scottish club. At £9m, the 22-year-old frontman isn't coming cheap, and the burden of that transfer fee is likely to place even more pressure on him as he joins a team desperately in need of a hero.
Rangers' current struggles
Rangers' mortifying Conference League exit to Jablonec on Thursday has sparked outrage at Ibrox, and Kelsy is about to walk into a dressing room under siege from a furious fanbase. Derek McInnes will need the 6ft 4ins striker to provide value for money and quick.
As seen with Youssef Chermiti in the early months of last season, hefty price tags have a tendency to weigh players down. However, Ridgewell is certain Kelsy has the strength of character to succeed in Scotland.
Ridgewell's assessment
Ridgewell told MailSport: “Rangers are getting a strong, powerful striker. He's young and will need some time but he's certainly a player that can hold up the ball. He occupies two centre-halves all the time because of his sheer profile and size.
“Kev's very good at arriving on the ball. His one-touch finishes most of the time are better than the moments when he takes too many touches. That's the part he's learning - he's got to keep working on making sure it's one, two, three touches max. Get a shot away or move the ball on. Once he starts taking four or five, he tends to get caught out.
“But he's so hard-working. His first move away was to Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine. Then he came to the MLS with Cincinnati and then the Timbers. But he has worked his backside off every step of the way.
“He's in the gym all the time. He doesn't need to be told what to do, he's always in there. He'll go back there at five or six o'clock at night to do his own stuff. Sometimes, the issue for us at the Timbers was trying to keep him out of the gym so we could get him on the training pitch.
“He demands a lot of himself - but he's also still looking to find his voice. He has tendencies to drop his head but that's just out of love really. A lot of people can take it the wrong way, they can think he's sulking. That's not the case.
“I've had a lot of one-on-one meetings with him. He wants to be involved all the time, he wants to be involved in every stage of play, he wants to be involved in the build-up and then to finish it all off.
“He's worked really hard on his English. Now he's going to have to work really hard on his Scottish!”
Pressure and expectations
In Chermiti's first few months in Scotland, you'd seldom see the Portuguese frontman's name mentioned without the £8million fee it took to sign him from Everton also being cast up too. There were plenty insisting that was a colossal waste of money - until Chermiti finally found his goal-scoring grove.
It was that up-turn that prompted Galatasaray to submit a whopping £22million bid just hours before the striker suffered a season ending injury. Now McInnes needs Kelsy to provide a similar return on the substantial investment Gers are about to make in his signing.
But Ridgewell said: “I honestly don't think he'll be bothered by all the money talk. I really don't. The outside noise of the value will probably be more than what he's putting on himself. His own pressure will be just to score goals.
“Obviously, he's going to get questions and all that sort of stuff at that standard. But when it comes to his persona away from the game, he's very quiet.
“Once he gets on the pitch, people look at him and go, ‘Oh s**t, we've got to do something about this guy’. He attracts two centre-halves just because of his physique.
“He comes across as a big 6ft 4ins forward, but he's not worried about what people are going to think. It's obviously going to be a different beast up there at Ibrox, but look where he's been.
“He moved to Shakhtar in Ukraine at 19. That's some place to go and play football. After that, he moved to the MLS with Cincinnati before coming to the Timbers.
“He wasn't the No1 striker at Portland when he first arrived. But that's what he ended up becoming and nine goals in 21 games this season is proof of that. I think his character is just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and Rangers are getting a striker that striving to become better.
“He wants to be No1 for Venezuela, for the national team. Salomon Rondon's obviously retired now, so he wants that jersey. And he wants to be playing in big time competitions.
“For him, I think this is the next step. To keep pushing on and to keep progressing his career. Fair play to the kid.”
Ibrox readiness
Former Birmingham and Aston Villa defender Ridgewell might not have played north of the border but he knows all about Rangers from his time playing alongside Barry Ferguson in Alex McLeish's English League Cup Blues side. From everything they told him about what is required at Ibrox, Ridgewell is convinced Kelsy can cut it too.
He said: “I've been trying to wrack my brains of who he reminds me of. Not anyone that I've thought of really. He has that the presence of someone like a Didier Drogba - but obviously he doesn't play the same way.
“He wants to link up and things like that. He's definitely a different character to anyone that I've been around. When you look at him, you think, ‘Oh f***ing hell, he's going to be loud and blah blah’. But he's not.
“He's very quiet. He's keeps himself to himself. He came out of his shell at Portland a lot and got close to quite a few players. It was emotional when he was left.
“I spoke to him on Wednesday briefly before he jumped on his flight to San Francisco to sort his UK visa. I told him he's going to love it.
“I played with Barry at Birmingham, when Big Eck was our manager. Both were top men. They talked about Rangers non-stop and the demands you felt at that club, how the atmosphere and the intensity can get on top of you, so yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how Kevin copes with all that, especially with the way the season has started.
“So I told him he'll love it. He'll love the atmosphere. He'll love the arena he's in. He's going to be in a big time arena. Not that he wasn't before. But it's a completely different kettle of fish.
“I said, ‘Take it head head on’ - which he will do. He'll be at the training ground at 6.30 at night when no one else is there. People will wonder what he's doing there. But I have no doubt he'll fit right in.”
