Rangers B team coach David McCallum has backed Stephen Kelly to stay in contention for first-team honours in the forthcoming season.
Kelly was involved in last night's first-team friendly victory over Partick Thistle at Fir Park, with his impressive and mature performance singled out for praise from assistant manager Gary McAllister following the full-time whistle.
And having worked with Kelly within the Ibrox club 's youth ranks, McCallum was also pleased with the 21-year-old's showing and reckons he didn't look out of place amongst Steven Gerrard's Premiership champions.
Speaking after today's first and second round draws for the newly-revamped SPFL Trust Trophy, McCallum said: "Stephen has been at the club since he was very, very young, maybe eight-years-old, but he's gone a different route from a player like Nathan Patterson.
"Nathan has obviously went from the academy to the first-team, Stephen has gone out on loan where he's had to find a way to build his career in a different environment.
"I think he was very comfortable in the first-team last night [against Partick Thistle].
"It just looked normal to him, and that's credit to Stephen.
"I think what Stephen has done is he's shown up well when asked to go in and amongst the first-team.
"When you go into that environment you need to have a bit of personality to be able to cope with the players around about you, and not just there to fill a jersey, and I think Stephen showed that last night.
"He's got a bit of personality, he'll back himself to go and be part of that group, and hopefully Stephen will continue to show up well and give the manager some options to consider."
Whilst he could very well remain in contention for Gerrard's first-string, Kelly is likely to be involved for McCallum's B team this season, and could feature in the SPFL Trust Trophy, where the Ibrox youngsters have been drawn away to Dumbarton in the first round then at home to Ayr United, if they progress.
