Rangers director of football, Mark Allen, conducted his first major interview with the Scottish written press a fortnight ago when he made some interesting comments with regards to the profile of the players Steven Gerrard and his scouting system are targeting.

“… we have started to put plans in place that address some of the shortcomings of last season. “You have to have a real understanding of what is required here. When you looked at the league and you looked at our squad, my interpretation was that we needed to be bigger, stronger, faster. We had to be more athletic to compete. “You have to win the right to control a game, let ability take its turn after that. But you have to earn the right first and to do that you need certain characteristics and traits in players.”

Steven Gerrard is set to announce his thirteenth signing of the summer with NK Osijek winger and Albanian international Eros Grezda joining for a fee believed to be in excess of £2m.

And it is with the above quote in mind that the direct style and physical attributes of Grezda come as no surprise. The dozen players to have come through the Ibrox revolving door this transfer window correlate with the sentiments of Allen, meaning it is now possible to create an identikit of what a Gerrard player looks like: a powerful runner, a natural disposition to press, and for forwards, versatility to operate across the front line.

So why Grezda, and what will he add?

Jamie Murphy’s season-ending injury left Rangers with just three recognised wide players in Daniel Candeias, Ryan Kent and Glenn Middleton. The latter has only recently being promoted to the first-team squad, while Kent is a loanee still to find consistency and work out his own game. Another winger was required.

Grezda is an out-and-out dribbler. Predominantly right-footed, he operated on both the left and right flank at Osijek, switching sides frequently in-game. Grezda did play slightly more football from the right-hand side and also played wing back on a couple of occasions, but the emphasis on running with the ball is shown by the fact that he attempted 205 dribbles last season, the second most per 90 minutes in the Croatian league (Borna Barisic was top of the charts when it came to the largest percentage of dribbles completed, managing an 81.94% success rate).

He is a player who can look untidy on the eye but one who possesses destructive acceleration across the first four or five yard, particularly from a standing start. In fact, his pace is sustained across much larger distances too.

Grezda will be an asset on the counter-attack as he is someone who can carry the ball over a long distance. Standing at exactly six foot, he has impressive agility and core strength to withstand bumps and ride challenges coming from the side. This lends itself to drawing fouls, which he is very good at and may be a skill underappreciated in terms of its impact on the game. He was the eighth most fouled player in Croatia last season, winning a free-kick 64 times in 26 appearances.

As a replacement for Murphy, he is similar in that he is not a winger who will produce a high volume of crosses. His ability to lift the ball while travelling at pace is not a strength, often hooking the ball back towards the ‘D’. Instead, he likes to drive inwards towards goal whether that be from the left or the right, meanwhile off the ball he makes penetrative, diagonal runs looking for the ball in behind.

He offers boundless energy and his competitive nature when pressing and battling for the ball will endear himself to the Ibrox crowd who value these qualities, if not prioritise them. Grezda will naturally buy into the counter-pressing system Gerrard is instilling and performs it with a great intensity, but he could improve the angle at which he presses the full-back as he can make it simple to play around him.

As stated, Grezda likes to carry the ball but the downside to this quality is that he can wasteful. Rangers fans will need to quickly get used to a player who is undeterred by being dispossessed. Guilty of sometimes being too eager to turn the defender, he can tangle his feet as he looks to receive and spin the defender in the one motion. That determination to commit players and engage full-backs will be welcome at Rangers but he often drives into crowded areas. That’s not to say he is not capable of showing quick feet to escape, he is at times.

Zoran Zekić, the Osijek coach, is a much maligned figure in Glasgow now following his behaviour over the double-header, but he is clearly a capable coach. Not only do his teams play an attractive style of football, he has shown that he develops individuals too. Watching Grezda at Lokomotiva and then at Osijek it is obvious that he has simplified the game for the Albanian by refining when he chooses to go alone and in what areas he roams.

He is equally adept at coming short in off the line or from a more central area to receive the ball as he is at stretching the game. His instinctive movement after he has laid off the ball is to turn and move into a central area, occupying the central defenders. Against Ufa, Rangers made it far too easy for their flat five-man defence to mark space as only Morelos was engaging them. Kent and Candeias stayed out wide, which is something Grezda would remedy; he is constantly on the move

Grezda looks a much improved player thanks to his year at Osijek. Following the winter break he showed an impressive spell of form and stood out in a team dominated by technical proficiency, using his athleticism to inject verve and variety into attacks.

But he strikes me as the type of player who has little nuance to his thought process when on the ball, toggling between nought and full pelt. This tends to afflict him when he is one-on-one with space in behind as he has shown a tendency overthink before not committing the defender one way or the other. People may draw a comparison with Michael O’Halloran in this regard but he is of course far superior.

Do the stats match the eye?

Grezda is 23, a good age to be signing a player with plenty of sell-on value. Especially a player whose raw attributes mean he has a high ceiling. With 152 senior club appearances under his belt he has amassed a good amount of experience after starting his career in Slovenia with Aluminij and Zavrc, before winning a move to Croatia.

There are more technically gifted players at Osijek who Rangers fans observed in their Europa League such as Robert Mudrazija, Haris Hajradinovic and Petar Bočkaj, but the latter is less mobile. This is clearly factored in to fit with Gerrard’s high-intensity gameplan he is honing. The Albanian brings more of a goal threat too.

When you compare the statistical output of Rangers’ wide options with Grezda, two obvious things stick out; he manages more shots and more touches in the box than all of them. And that’s in a better league than the Scottish Premiership and as part of a team, Osijek, who averaged 4% less possession than Rangers.

Last season Grezda averaged 4.5 touches in the box per 90, while Murphy averaged 3.4, Candeias managed 2.3 and Kent only mustered 1.3. Grezda also got off 2.4 shots per 90 with 43% of those on target. Murphy averaged 1.75 and Candeias had 1.34 shots a game.

These may seem like small differentials but for a Rangers team that, despite the obvious strides made in Gerrard’s short reign so far, still lack creativity and a goal threat from midfield and wide areas, it is well targeted. The recruitment team have clearly identified a dynamic forward they believe can contribute in front of goal, as Gerrard stated himself today.

… he is an excellent player and the fans will love him because he can contribute in the final third. He’s really quick, very direct and he comes in with international experience. According to Borna Barisic and Nikola Katic he was by a mile Osijek’s best player last season. He is a very dangerous player and, while you never want to see anyone injured we are thankful he wasn’t available to play against us in the earlier round. All going well, hopefully he’ll be a big player for us moving forward.

His track record so far doesn’t guarantee goals, though. He has not yet managed double-figures in goals in any of his five seasons, with his best return coming in 2015/2016 at Lokomotiva when he netted nine league goals. At Osijek he averaged a goal every 345 minutes across all competitions last season, one every 510 minutes in 2016/2017 at Lokomotiva Zagreb and a goal every 242 minutes in his first season in Croatia during season 2015/2016.

But if you look at the number of times he finds himself in dangerous positions and his thirst to get in the box it is not hard to believe that he could break the ten-goal barrier this season. He possesses sound technique and a decent left foot. It doesn’t look like a temperament issue, more the delays he takes trying to find the optimum angle that ends up scuppering chances. Should he improve his erratic decision-making this benchmark should be within his capabilities.

How will he fit into the side?

Grezda is one of those players it is difficult to confine to a particular role as his position at Osijek was so fluid. Looking at how Alfredo Morelos has been deployed this season – dropping into a false nine position at times to link play – I envisage Grezda’s pace and eagerness to break lines being used in a way to exploit the space vacated by Morelos and/or Kyle Lafferty.

Thomas Muller labelled himself as a raumdeuter, and while I am not a fan of what I find to be pretentious sub-roles, this may be the best description for a player who in sheer technical measurements is not excellent in more than a couple of departments, but whose effectiveness stems from his interpretation of space.

The Albanian will still need a roughly defined starting position, however, and with Candeias a lot more rigid in terms of position, the left side of midfield may be earmarked for Grezda. It would see him paired with former Osijek and Lokomotiva Zagreb team-mate Borna Barisic at left-back.

Grezda is different to Candeias, though, as the Portuguese winger’s player of the season award was primarily in recognition of his crossing ability, which was a result of the good combination play between him, Tavernier and Morelos at times. Grezda is not a player who will link in the same way; he is an eliminator who seems pretty comfortable in his own skin about his single-mindedness.

So, the prospect of a Wallace-McKay type of partnership like in 2015/2016 where they reached near telepathic levels of understanding when it came to underlapping and overalapping doesn’t seem likely.

But if Barisic was perceived to be a coup for Rangers, his impressive start to life in Scotland has only solidified that sentiment. Against Motherwell it was obvious that he will help balance the attack compared to last season where the right wing combination of Candeias and captain James Tavernier was overly-dominant.

Rangers made the second most crosses per 90 minutes behind only Motherwell with 19. But it was the most imbalanced in terms of source as 66.7% (511) came from the right, double the number from the left (255). It is only a small sample size but this season it is a 21-13 reverse.

Barisic does not need a tricky winger to create space for him to deliver. He is superb at shifting the ball and creating a yard to deliver, which is why Gerrard may opt to maintain width through the left full-back rather than the wide player. This would also suggest the lack of a left-footed player from midfield to the forward line is not a pressing matter.

There could be the scenario where Morelos, Lafferty and Grezda all start, using the latter two as inside forwards. This could be in a 3-4-3 formation with Tavernier and Barisic as wing-backs or as a 4-3-3. Both would most likely only be used against weaker teams in Scotland but it gives Rangers greater potency and more options.

Rangers still look to lack creativity and sober decision-making in the final third. Grezda won’t solve that issue by providing poise or great elegance as he enters the final third, but his profile suits Scottish football superbly and he will no doubt be a consistent threat.

Statistics taken from Wyscout. These videos, gifs & stills are not to be taken as representative of a player’s consistency. Instead, they are a selection I have adjudged to be a reflection of their overall strengths & weaknesses having analysed every action performed by the player in over 20 HNL games.