Jon Flanagan has revealed that the end of his Ibrox career came soon after Celtic were confirmed as 2019/20 Premiership champions.
The former Liverpool defender followed Steven Gerrard to Ibrox in the summer of 2018 with the aim of ending Celtic’s domination of Scottish football.
After 19 appearances, mainly filling in at left-back, Flano has still to add to his medal collection with Gerrard putting in a phone call to tell his former Anfield team-mate that he won’t be part of his plans for next season.
The 27-year-old told The Athletic:
I probably expected it to be honest, the gaffer was great with me. After the announcement that the season was over and Celtic were champions, Stevie rang me. He said he really wished it could be done face to face but we needed to have a chat about my contract finishing. Stevie said the decision had been made together with the board to not offer me another deal.
I thanked him for giving me the opportunity to spend two years at Ibrox and told him I’d had a great time working with him. There are no hard feelings. At my age, I need to be playing regular football. If I wasn’t going to get that chance at Rangers it makes sense for us to go our separate ways.
Flanagan made 10 appearances in the season just finished, picking up four yellow cards including one in his farewell appearance- the Scottish Cup defeat away to Hearts at the end of February.
After a typically brutal 45 minutes he was replaced for the second half by American Soccer Guy Matt Polster to bring the curtain down on the Ibrox Chapter for the defender who was once known as the Scouse Cafu!
The Athletic explained:
Flanagan’s eye-catching displays in 2013-14 earned him the nickname “Scouse Cafu” and the World Cup-winning captain decided to pay him a visit. “It was before our final game against Newcastle,” he says. “I’d heard a few whispers but I wasn’t too sure what was happening. Cafu then comes in and pulls up a seat to join us for the pre-match meal at the Hope Street Hotel. Lucas Leiva had sorted it out.
“We had a chat and Cafu gave me one of his shirts. I’ve got that somewhere safe. It was brilliant. The ‘Scouse Cafu’ thing started on Twitter and I just thought it was a wind-up, a bit of a joke.
“But it snowballed and suddenly I was sat with Cafu and he was doing interviews saying how much he rated me. It was surreal but it was great to meet a legend like him.”
During the interview Flano revealed that May is his last Ibrox pay-day, he also tipped Steven Gerrard to manage Liverpool in the future.