Connor Barron not fazed by Aberdeen abuse as focus turns to Rangers success

Growing up an Aberdeen supporter, as Connor Barron has, means he doesn’t need to have a squizz at social media to gauge the reaction of the Pittodrie faithful to his move to Rangers.

He knows fine well that he will now be the lighting rod for the antipathy his old supporters have for the Ibrox club, particularly as fellow former Don, Ryan Jack, has now departed the scene.

If the thought of the fanbase he has been a part of all of his life turning their collective backs on him is bothering the 21-year-old, though, he is doing a bang-up job of hiding it.

Barron was unveiled as a Rangers player yesterday, and though he may now be a long way from his North-East origins, he looked right at home wearing the light blue jersey at his new club’s Auchenhowie training base.

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Time will tell if he can make the step up look so effortless when he gets onto the pitch, but that is where he is channelling his energies, rather than worrying about what people are saying about him in his hometown.

Barron may be able to blank the online abuse, but it will be unavoidable when he goes back to Pittodrie with Rangers at the end of October. No matter what treatment he receives though, he says he has broad enough shoulders to handle it.

“Obviously it’s a while away from right now, and I take it each game as it comes,” Barron said.

“Every game of football, I enjoy playing, so it’s not going to be any different.

“As a player, you have got to do things for yourself sometimes and do what is best for your career at the right time.

“I pay my thanks to Aberdeen, they have brought me up from a boy into the player that I am today. I thank them for everything they have done to help me get here in my career. As I say, it is the next chapter of my career now at Rangers Football Club and I can’t wait to get going.

“To be honest, I haven’t seen anything [online]. All I do is focus on my job on the pitch. I don’t go on social media or anything like that. That is not my job. My job is to go on the pitch and perform and let my football do the talking.

“It doesn’t get to me. Not at all. It doesn’t get to me. When you are a club the size of Rangers, that can’t get into your head. If it does, then there is a problem.

“I am a big character myself. I have been through a lot in my career so far, and experienced many things, and I want more experiences to come at this club and hopefully successful times ahead.

“My football does the talking. My job is being a Rangers player, being successful here and that’s it.

“I felt as if this was the right place for me. Since day one I have felt at home, and I can’t wait to get out there.”

One person Barron certainly wouldn’t be able to ignore if he had an issue with the move is his Aberdeen-daft dad Graeme, but thankfully, his family are fully supportive of this latest step in his development as a player.

“My dad supports me wherever I go in my career,” he said.

“He’s my dad at the end of the day and my family is my family, they will support me wherever I go and there is nothing more to it than that.”

With that rather thorny subject addressed and the issue parked until late October, then, just what can the Rangers support expect from their new recruit?

A tidy operator on the ball, of course, with an eye for a pass, but Barron is also hoping to bring a goal threat from the middle of the park.

He hasn’t been able to provide that consistently throughout his Aberdeen career, despite some spectacular strikes from range. His stunning effort against St Mirren last season, for example, was his only goal of the campaign. But it is already a focus of his early days working with Philippe Clement and his backroom team.

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“It is something that I will be working closely with the staff every day in training to add to my game,” he said.

“At times at Aberdeen I came up with a couple and then circumstances are different in terms of the team and the way we want to play. Coming to a team who play very nice football in a fluent way should help me add that to my game.”

Ultimately though, Barron knows that whatever he manages to achieve on a personal level will be irrelevant if he can’t help Rangers towards their collective aims, chief of which has to be to win the league title after the disappointing end to last season.

Like many things in his life at the moment though, he isn’t daunted by that expectation.

“I don’t think any player comes to Rangers that doesn’t want to win trophies,” he said.

“That’s what this club is all about. If you don’t have that ambition there’s no point being here.

“The ambition is to win trophies and if we don’t, we get judged on that. So that’s why any player comes here and that’s the expectation of the club.”