I don’t suppose watching Danny Swanson pick up another man of the match award with his old club would have been part of Michael O’Halloran’s preparations before taking his familiar place on a Rangers bench for Sunday’s League Cup semi-final.
But it won’t have escaped his attention that Swanson is the new him.
They are totally different players, of course, but just as Tommy Wright used to get his team to move the play towards O’Halloran when he was scaring the life out of defenders this time last year, now the Perth boss is keen to get the former Dundee United man on the ball as much as possible.
A penny for his thoughts tomorrow night.
It was at Ibrox last season that O’Halloran produced arguably his most impressive performance in a St Johnstone shirt – and Wright arguably his most successful tactical surprise – when as a centre-forward the former Bolton winger exposed the lack of pace at the heart of the Rangers defence in a way that no individual or team had managed to in Mark Warburton’s short time in charge.
And there’s little doubt that it was the main reason he eventually moved to Rangers.
It’s not O’Halloran’s fault that Rangers were the only ones who put money on the table last January and it’s not O’Halloran’s fault that the two clubs agreed a deal. Nor is it his fault that Warburton wanted him.
But, what has become totally clear is that it was the wrong club for him to go to. Or rather, it was the wrong manager for him to sign for.
Through the middle, as O’Halloran was deployed in that League Cup clash last September, isn’t his best position. It’s wide right, when he is able to turn defence into attack and his team-mates give him green grass to run into.
That’s not how Warburton likes his teams to play and his tippy-tappy triangles were never going to get the best out of a pacey and direct winger.
O’Halloran was the most talked about transfer story of last January. He won’t command the same headlines (or fee) in a couple of months but a move is even more important for his career this time around. He’s a far better player than the square peg in a round hole who has had one league start for a team that has been struggling to find consistency in the top flight.
When you’ve been at Ibrox for the best part of a year and haven’t come near to bettering a performance you put in as a Rangers opponent, you know that this isn’t working out.
Yet to reach the peak years of his career, O’Halloran needs to find a team and a manager who will make the most of his considerable assets again.
He won’t have to look too far in that search. Just chap on the visitors’ dressing room door and ask for loan move back to Perth.
