NEW bands which quickly take the pop charts by storm often struggle to follow up their initial success and produce that difficult second album.

But Ianis Hagi has the X Factor required to be an even more of a smash hit at Rangers next term than he was in his debut campaign and can help the Ibrox club in their bid to become No.1 in Scotland according to one admirer.

The Romanian playmaker, who spent the second half of the 2019/20 season in Glasgow on loan, delighted Rangers supporters on Wednesday when he joined permanently in a £3m transfer from Belgian outfit Genk.

Gary McSwegan, the ex-Scotland striker who now works as a players’ representative, watched Steven Gerrard’s side in action several times this year and is convinced that Hagi is an excellent acquisition who will only improve further.

“The boy Hagi has got a lot of promise,” said McSwegan. “Players tend to do better at a club in their second season. He has got the hang of it, has seen what the club is about and has a fair idea of what to expect going forward.

“That will stand him in good stead when they go back in for the new season. He has got good technique. He is a guy who has maybe got that X Factor, the ability to come up with something different, that will make a real difference.”

Hagi, the son of the legendary Gheorghe, certainly impressed onlookers hugely in his performances before football was suspended in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The skilful 21-year-old scored a spectacular late winner in a crucial Ladbrokes Premiership match against Hibernian in February and then netted twice in an astonishing fightback against Braga in the Europa League a fortnight later.

He also set up Ryan Kent for the goal against Braga over in Portugal which ensured that Rangers progressed to the last 16 of that competition with a defence-splitting through ball.

McSwegan predicted that Alfredo Morelos, who could remain in this country for a fourth season because of uncertainty the coronavirus pandemic has created in the transfer market, will benefit from the presence of Hagi in the final third if he stays.

“I can see Hagi delivering killer final balls in to Morelos,” he said. “I don’t know where Hagi will play. I don’t think he is a winger as such. I think he is more of an attacking midfielder and is more suited to playing off the striker in the gap between the opposition midfield and defence. But wherever he is deployed he will be able to create chances.”

Liverpool great Gerrard has favoured playing twin No 10s in a narrow attacking trio in a 4-3-3 formation similar to that used by Jurgen Klopp at Anfield since being appointed manager at Rangers in 2018.

Many fans would like to see his side play with greater width - they are convinced that would help Ryan Kent to make more of an impact in matches – and McSwegan reckons it could be worthwhile tweaking the system in the new season.

“When I played at Ibrox, I preferred to stay in the box and have wingers supply me with crosses,” he said. “Sometimes as a Rangers striker you don’t need to do too much. You just need to stay in the box and lose your man because you have got good quality throughout the team.

“When I was at Rangers back in the day we always had good wide players. Pieter Huistra and Alexei Mikhailichenko were always delivering good balls into the box for me.

“Morelos is a bit of a maverick. He drifts wide and drops deep and wins free-kicks. I would like to see him stay in the penalty box. When he is on form and is fully focused he is a real handful.

“He prefers leading the line by himself. He likes to take the responsibility on his shoulders. But when you look back on the 2019/20 season you can see that a lot of the goals he scored came from good service from wide areas. That is essential for him. He takes up good positions in the box and is generally quite reliable if you get the ball to him.

“Personally, I think Rangers sometimes did lack width sometimes last season. I also felt Ryan Kent was very deep at times. I prefer to see him in the final because I think that is where he does the most damage. I would like to see him up there and let the midfielders deal with things.”

McSwegan, who now works at the Quorum Sports agency run by former Everton, Newcastle United and Manchester City striker Imre Varadi, is confident that landing Hagi is a positive start to what is sure to be a busy summer of transfer activity by Rangers.

“I would like to see Rangers signing boys who are going to be starting,” he said. “In the past few seasons I have looked at some of the signings and thought ‘they have got potential to kick on and do something’.

“Maybe that is where they have fallen short. They need to go and improve their starting XI and not just look to the future. A lot of the boys are of a similar standard.

“How Rangers get on in the transfer market will determine how Rangers do next season. If they improve their first XI they have got a chance. If they don’t then who knows? It might pan out the same as last season.”