Graeme Murty delivers insight into rising teenage star Alex Lowry as Rangers youngster tipped to become first-team mainstay

Graeme Murty watched Nathan Patterson progress up through the youth ranks at Ibrox before earning a big-money move to Premier League side Everton.

Now the former Rangers caretaker boss has backed Alex Lowry to flourish as part of Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side in the coming seasons after insisting the midfielder is “unlike anyone else” at the club.

The 18-year-old starlet forced his way into the first-team set-up this term, scoring on his debut in a Scottish Cup win over League Two outfit Stirling Albion in January.

Since then, Lowry has gained further minutes alongside academy team-mate Leon King and netted a double for Scotland Under-19s against Turkey earlier this week.

Murty, who was heavily involved in the club development set-up prior to leaving the club in November last year, is confidence the teenager possess all the right attributes to become a mainstay in the Scottish champions team.

Speaking on BBC Sportsound, he said: “Alex is unlike anyone else at Rangers I would suggest in terms of his technical ability, the range of passing that he sees and executes, his individual ability to go past people and he has a remarkable degree of self-confidence.

“He believes in himself to the upmost and he wants the ball, he’s hungry for it and wants to make things happen.

“It’s not a surprise when he comes on to make his debut, looks at home in a first-team match of that pace and of that tempo because he has the technique to play and you are not surprised that he scores.

“He had the confidence to back himself and go and do it. These things are not going to come off all the time. You have to stress it. He is going to fail.

“What the back story is, is that he has a wonderful set of coaches behind him that support him and are educating him in methods to choose his right time to try his technical stuff.

“What is the right time to keep the ball and keep it simple? And how do you deal with not only failure - because it didn’t work - but also success.

“Lots of young players can get carried away with success. How do you keep them calm and level and make sure they continue to strive and develop.

“Speaking to all the coaches at Rangers and the hierarchy it’s not about just making your debut, it is a career. A career is 100 games plus.

“If Alex Lowry gets 100 games plus at Rangers, then he will be educated really well. He will have taken to the platform extremely well and he will have managed expectation, which is quite difficult for a young player.

“There is no doubt he has the technical ability and technical quality to do it. I remember watching him with some of the first-team staff with Michael Beale and Steven Gerrard.

“He is faced up with another opponent and he goes flick/flack and the ball shifts both ways, poor defender twists round in a know and Michael Beale goes ‘wow’.

“That moment there puts you right at the forefront of the first-team coaches’ minds.”