The fact that Owen Beck’s contribution to Celtic’s 7-1 demolition of Dundee on Wednesday night has mainly been written off as “just one of those things” speaks much about how highly regard people hold him.
An inevitable, if challenging, learning curve for a full-back who was the target of an Ibrox offer in January and is probably going to be considered once more by Rangers when Borna Barisic’s deal expires at the end of the current campaign.
Although Celtic’s flying winger Yang Hyun-Jun was in especially captivating form as Brendan Rodgers’ struggling team blew away the cobwebs with a six-goal first half, Owen Beck was completely destroyed. However, the 21-year-old is by no means the first young defender to have a bit of a nightmare evening against elite opposition.
Who knows, maybe it will work out well for him? It was a harsh lesson, to be sure, but one that Dundee’s Liverpool loanee may learn from and use to his advantage when faced with comparable obstacles in the future.
Not to be forgotten, Ridvan Yilmaz, Beck’s fellow left-back, was considered something of a busted flush at Ibrox just a few months ago. His incredible comeback under Philippe Clement is evidence that a young player can make significant progress in an instant with the correct mentor and setting.
At Rangers, Owen Beck has admirers.
Jordan McGhee, a teammate from Dundee, remarked after converting one of Beck’s four assists away to St Johnstone recently: “We practise that in training and you know when people like Owen find space that, if you make that run, they will find you nine times out of ten” (Press and Journal).
Since joining us last summer and having his loan agreement extended through June, Beck has excelled in that area. Every boy that entered was intelligent to a man.
Beck appears to have many of the creative qualities needed from a modern full-back, with his normally wicked delivery from the left side drawing similarities to one Charlie Adam, the legendary Rangers and Liverpool player famous for his accurate set-pieces.
It might be necessary to replace Borna Barisic.
Rangers’ full-backs are an important source of creativity; they are a squad that often dominates possession against densely populated defensive lines. Discover the lasting significance of James Tavernier and the pivotal part Barisic played in their 2021 Premiership victory led by Steven Gerrard.
However, that Dundee fiasco exposed the defensive flaws that the young player still has, and maybe not unexpectedly. Weaknesses that need to be fixed if Owen Beck is to become Yilmaz’s primary rival for the Rangers left-back position starting in 2024–2025.
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