'Big step backwards': £3m Rangers ace urged not to re-join former club as he's far too good

07/05/2024 19:00

What is it they say about best-laid plans? Rangers’ £3 million man knows a lot about things going awry, a long-term injury followed by a loan spell which feels destined to be one of those you remind yourself about about on Wikipedia years later and say ‘huh, did he really play there?’

Since the turn of the year, Ianis Hagi has featured in a grand total of 53 minutes of La Liga football for Deportivo Alaves.

Any suggestions that Alaves may look to sign the Rangers-owned playmaker permanently have disappeared quicker than Hagi disappeared from the starting XI, having not been included on the team sheet since early December.

The good news is that, from an international perspective, Hagi has more than enough credit in the bank to avoid being left out of Romania’s European Championship squad. It was he who fired them there in the first place, of course, with a decider against Israel in November’s qualifiers.

And while it’s easy to argue the opposite with hindsight on your side, one former Romanian Pro League striker Robert Nita still feels that Hagi is better off on a La Liga bench than he would be playing regular first-team minutes back home in Eastern Europe.

Ianis Hagi keen on permanent Rangers exit

A reunion with his legendary father Gheorghe at Farul Constanta had been mooted by some. But, as far as Nita is concerned, returning to Romania five years after graduating the domestic school and heading to Rangers, via Genk, would be nothing short of a massive ‘step backwards’

“I don’t think (Gheorghe) took Ianis Hagi to Farul before the Euros because it would have been a big step backwards in football. This move would have hurt him. I don’t think Mr Hagi thought as a parent, he thought like a great professional,” Nita tells Fanatik, Romania’s greatest ever footballer not only the head coach but also the majority owner of Farul.

“I believe that Ianis has the ability to play a good Euros. Indeed, it is difficult without rhythm of the game. I think it would have been a big step back for Ianis if he returned anywhere in Romania, not necessarily to Mr. Hagi.”

Hardly ideal Euro 2024 preparations

Hagi, who was once a target for clubs in the English Premier League and was previously in discussions over a £10 million move to Russia, admitted to Marca in January that he is keen to stay in La Liga ‘for a long time’, feeling that the slower more technical pace of Spanish football suits him better than the hustle and bustle of Scotland.

Whether Alaves’ top-flight rivals will be put off by his underwhelming spell at the Mendizorrotza, however, only time will tell.

“Mr Hagi, as far as I know, is not involved in the decisions that Ianis Hagi takes,” adds Nita. “He just advises him and comes up with some arguments. If he only thought with his heart, he would have brought him in a second.

“(If Hagi had joined Farul) you would hear; ‘He failed, he didn’t do anything, he came to his father’s team as usual’. Ianis is far above (the level of) our championship. And now he is in a top championship, in Spain.”