Not by Hemdani it isn’t, though. Paul Le Guen, the Rangers manager, has already stated there is no guarantee that Ferguson, despite his status as the Ibrox captain, will return just like that and there was generous praise for Hemdani’s contribution thus far this term. Le Guen’s surprise stance justifies Hemdani’s bullish take on the matter: that he is more than capable of playing alongside Ferguson. “Myself and Barry played together last year so I don’t see why we can’t play together again this year,” says Hemdani, firmly. Indeed, that is what happened yesterday when Ferguson made his comeback as a half-time substitute for Libor Sionko.
Does it not worry him that Jeremy Clement, another rival for a midfield spot, was a Le Guen signing and from the manager’s former club, Lyon, at that? “Oh, I don’t think about that,” he replies. “I’m trying to play at a good level and I just want to keep playing. Whether I do isn’t for me to decide. Who plays is the choice of the coach, it’s not up to me what he will do with the team.”
He is, he insists, pleased that Ferguson is back, however inconvenient it may yet prove. “I think it’s good news for us if Barry can play because we’ll have many games and it’s important to have the full squad fit. I think it’s good for everybody at the club.” Himself included. Honest.
It would, though, be miserable timing for Hemdani to miss out at the very point when he has pronounced himself the most content he has been at the club since joining them 15 months ago. Hemdani was late arriving for his media duties, much as his introduction as a Rangers player was itself delayed last term.
Signed with typical bluster — Bayer Leverkusen and Real Betis were the teams that, as tradition dictates, Rangers chairman David Murray divulged had missed out — Hemdani collected a groin injury, initially reported as ‘minor’, in a pre-season friendly at Ipswich. It wasn’t until mid-October that he actually made his debut.
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A sense of mystery, and even the odd conspiracy theory, emerged in the interim, not least because Alex McLeish was often vague about his precise state of health. This evasiveness on the issue prompted a few doubts about just how much Hemdani actually wanted to play. By November he was absent again with a hamstring problem. The award of a four-year contract was looking generous.
Surely there must have been times when he regretted ever joining? “No, because when you take a decision you have to take it forward and it was like that for me,” he reasons. “Last year wasn’t the best, but I still felt okay here. I had a good relationship with Alex McLeish, he was a good man. It was frustrating for me at the start, it wasn’t good for me, but now things are better.
“I think this is the happiest I have been at Rangers. I am trying to do a good job for the team and while it’s not easy, I am happy to be here. The only change from last year is that then I stayed in the holding position, now the new manager has said he wants me to get forward more, but it’s not so different.”
Does he feel the fans are now seeing the real him? “I still have to try and get better in every game I play,” he says. “I cannot say, ‘I played well in this game’, and then not worry about how I do in the next. There are always areas you can improve. As for the supporters, I think the fans can always see if you’re giving 100% for the team or not.”
It is too easily forgotten, perhaps, that Hemdani did finish last season as a regular in the Rangers team from February onwards. He also featured in their best European nights, the draws in Porto and Villareal. “Last season we set a standard for ourselves in Europe with what we did in the Champions League,” he adds. “We did a good job and ended up alongside 15 of the best teams in Europe. It’s too early to talk about another Uefa Cup final for me, but we have to be good enough to reach the group stage, it’s important for everyone we at least get there.”
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Two years ago in Stockholm, Marseille’s night effectively ended when Fabien Barthez, their goalkeeper, was sent off when conceding a penalty with the match goalless just before half-time. “If it had stayed 11 versus 11 against Valencia we could have won,” says Hemdani. “When you lose a final it’s always difficult. It was a big frustration for everybody in our squad at that time, but now it’s in the past.”
Hemdani was a central defender that night, as he was for much of his time in France, and he is willing to do the same again at Rangers if asked. He accepts, too, that some squad rotation is inevitable. “You cannot play every game. At every club it’s like that,” he says. “You need recovery time. That was the problem last season. When you play Champions League you need all your energy for such games and sometimes, when it came to returning to the SPL, it wasn’t easy to start again. Our aim this year is to win the title. We have to do that because last year was such a bad year for us.”
Le Guen offered his own view on the anomaly of Rangers’ contrasting results at home and abroad last term. “Perhaps they were a bit unlucky during the domestic season and in Europe a bit lucky; that’s not the only explanation, but it’s one of them,” he said. “We have to respect what the team did last season. From the start, I’ve always been respectful and I’m not here to tell you it was bad before, but we have got a different way of working now.”
Le Guen will be at Molde’s home game against Viking Stavanger today, a bottom of the table clash in the Norwegian Tippeligaen. “The most important thing is that we have the right state of mind,” said Le Guen. “I feel the expectation on me to do well with Rangers in Europe because of the success at Lyon, but I’m used to pressure like that and I’m ready for it. I’m hopeful of giving a good answer.” Just as, eventually, Hemdani has done to his doubters. “I’ve had to adapt to Scottish football,” adds the midfielder, “but when you come to another country you don’t have to become another player, you just have to do the things that persuaded the club to sign you.”
Having waited so long to do that convincingly at Rangers, he is not in any hurry to relinquish a first-team position now. Surely the Uefa Cup can’t disappoint him twice.