Wonder boy Hagi suffers that familiar sinking feeling

Ianis Hagi is experiencing a very familiar feeling while on loan at Spanish side Alaves.

Due to nothing more than his surname the midfielder has an entitlement way beyond his very limited ability. He is a midfielder that lacks pace, can ping the occasional decent pass and very little else.

Moving to Ibrox in January 2020 was about the worst possible move that he could have made.

With trophies largely absent Ibrox fans feed off spin and hype while pretending that they are a big club that requires big names.

The full Hagi media machine moved into Ibrox led by his famous Dad. Tales emerged from Romania of interest from Real Madrid, Spurs and Manchester City without any substance or follow up.

Meanwhile bears drooled over the likely transfer fee and what glamorous league their labouring midfielder would next be starring in.

A knee injury in January 2022 brought a halt to the transfer tales, when Micky Beale signed Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin a year later it was clear that he had made plans that didn’t include Hagi.

When Kieran Dowell and Jose Cifuentes enrolled for the Revolution during the summer Hagi finally twigged that he wasn’t wanted, he squealed a little and got his loan move to Spain where they remember his Dad.

At the weekend Hagi lasted 67 minutes of the home defeat from Athletic Bilbao before being substituted, picking up the former wonder boy the Daily Record reports:

For Alaves coach Luis Garcia Plaza, it’s about patience in bedding the Romanian in to life in Spain but he did admit he didn’t look up to speed after only finding the bench since his arrival.

He told AS: “He has talent and quality. (He can bring) confidence and joy. But he was a little lost and couldn’t quite find (striker) Kike Garcia in the attack. He started out effervescent but his performance dipped, and he ended up being replaced.” Yet the same outlet’s post-match report was less complimentary saying. The Ianis Hagi experiment did not leave anyone happy. It would be normal for him to fall out of the starting XI.”

By the sound of it Hagi could be heading back to Ibrox in January, almost certainly to his fourth manager since his move to Scotland in January 2020.

Over three appearances for Alaves, Hagi has been on the park for 96 minutes.