Reports from the Scottish Sun confirms that AS Roma striker Umar Sadiq’s loan spell has been cancelled and the forward has returned to Italy even before the January window could begin. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as the writing was on the wall for quite some time now. The striker has been woeful and blew up his big chance to impress when he was picked to lead the line in the all-important League cup semi-final against Aberdeen.
The striker came to the Ibrox with an excellent reputation, and a lot of fans were really excited about the fact that he was coming from a club of Roma’s stature. However, the Nigerian managed to make just five appearances for the Gers before his loan spell got terminated. Let us also not forget that Gerrard often called out ( The Scottish Sun) the 21-year-old in public.
Even when Alfredo Morelos or Kyle Lafferty have been unavailable, Sadiq has failed even to make it to the matchday squads. Gerrard has picked Dapo Mebude and Serge Atakayi over him to be cover on the bench. So it was just a matter of time before this was made official (returning of Sadiq).
One can now expect the Bears to go after a striker in January and the same Scottish Sun reports add that Dominic Solanke is going to be his likely replacement. A replacement like that is something which the Gers fans shouldn’t mind, and the club can have someone who can really challenge Morelos for a place in the starting eleven.
As for Sadiq, he is still young and has time on his side to get his career back on track. However, the way he has flopped at Ibrox gives us the impression that it would be highly surprising if he manages to impress at Roma further. It is likely that he might have to bide his time in the lower divisions of football for the next few years to get himself back in the reckoning.
Sadiq is a traditional target man, and his goalscoring exploits at the youth level indicated that Gerrard was getting a decent backup striker. But his effort and commitment had been questioned by the manager on various occasions. Maybe he thought that coming from Roma; he might walk into the Rangers eleven straightaway. That didn’t happen, and the striker has cut a sorry figure since then.
The Nigerian is going to remembered at Rangers for the shambolic dive he made when he was through one on one on goal against the Dons. If he had stayed on his feet to put the ball in the goal, he could have had a completely different spell at Ibrox. But sadly those are the margins if you are playing at the top level.
