Rangers' rising star Nathan Patterson reckons he has the perfect role model in James Tavernier – but admits he’d love to take his jersey one day.
The full-back was a stand-out for the Scotland U19s against Belarus on Wednesday night, scoring a spectacular volley and getting up and down the wing all game.
The 17 year-old says he’s been inspired by watching Tavernier in training and hopes to one day emulate his hero by becoming a Rangers first-team regular.
He said: “Having the club captain in my position is brilliant and Tav’s the perfect player for me to try to copy. I’m learning from the best. The challenge for me is to one day take his place.
"He’s been a brilliant player for Rangers. He’s a great defender, gets forward a lot and gets goals and assists, too.
“It’s been a big help being able to watch him in training and I’ve had a few chats with him, too. I’ve trained with the first-team quite a bit this season and that’s been a really useful experience for me.
“I just want to keep progressing at Rangers and look to push more into the first-team picture. I feel that I’m getting there. I’m confident that if I keep doing the right things my chance will come soon.
“It would be amazing if I could get even just a few minutes on the pitch before the end of the season.”
Patterson, who can also play at left-back, scored his first goal for his country in the 2-2 draw at Cappielow. But he laughed that scoring from such a tight angle wasn’t quite what he had in mind.
He added: “It was brilliant to score but I don’t quite know what happened. It looked pretty spectacular on the volley but if I’m being honest it was a bit of a fluke. I was just trying to get it to the back post but it’s drifted in. But I’ll take it!”
Scotland’s next game in their European Championship qualifying group is against Andorra at Dumbarton tomorrow. And Patterson hopes they can make up for blowing a two-goal lead against Belarus.
He added: “We were disappointed not to win the other night. We were well on top for most of the game and created a lot of chances but let our lead slip. That was really frustrating.
“But we’ve still got a great chance to qualify. We still believe in ourselves and we’re confident we can get the results we need to go through.”
