Rangers kid is in the dark over his future, but has loved life at Airdrie

Arron Lyall admits he’s in the dark over his Rangers future, but hopes to have done enough at Airdrie to earn a new deal.

But if the midfielder isn’t going to be staying at Ibrox, he wants to get something sorted out fast over the summer.

Lyall has enjoyed his loan spell at New Broomfield and scored his second goal of the season in Friday night’s 2-1 Premiership play-off quarter-final defeat at Partick Thistle, which saw the Jags progress to face Raith Rovers in next week’s semi-final.

Lyall, who came through the Rangers academy, said: “Conversations need to be had, and my contract is up in the summer. A lot of the finer details aren’t down to me – I just want to be playing football.

“You need to have conversations with the parent club and the club you are coming on loan to. We thought Airdrie was the best fit.

“Being at Rangers, they dominate most of the ball in most games. Airdrie is similar, they play a lot of football, dominate the ball and play a lot of lovely stuff.

“I think for all parties, it was beneficial for everybody.

“You absolutely want to be playing at the top level, for as long as you can.

“If you can get your shot there [at Rangers], it’s the biggest club in the country, really. I’m going to take it if I can.”

At 20, Lyall has his entire career ahead of him, but says being at Airdrie has helped.

“Playing games develops you, but playing games at first-team level where it is competitive every week, and you are trying to push for play-off positions – there’s three points on the line every week, and it has been massive for me.

“In the first half of the season I was at Rangers, I had a good conversation with Rhys McCabe over Christmas, basically that I needed to come, enjoy my football, and play some minutes at men’s level.

“He had a lot of confidence in me, spoke to me, and said that I’m going to play some football and enjoy it.

“I’ve done that. I’ve had a good amount of appearances and some experience in the play-offs.

“Obviously not good experience, but you need to learn from it, especially going forward in the next couple of years, if you want to be challenging for stuff.”

Lyall scored his second goal of the season in the 2-1 defeat, and says it was hard to take.

“It’s obviously not good,” he said. “Over the course of the two legs we’ve gone toe-to-toe with them. They are one of the better sides in the league.

“I think we had the chances to go and even just take it to extra-time, then we could have pushed for a winner or penalties.

“I think we gave ourselves enough opportunities to go and grab a few more goals and maybe get the win – but at the end of the day, football’s football and we didn’t do it – it’s a tough one to take.

“At the end of the day it didn’t quite happen, and we have to move on.

“But if you look at the results we’ve had and the performances we’ve put in, it’s a testament to the boys and the coaching staff.

“The football we’ve played, it’s got us results but it’s also been enjoyable. If you’re enjoying your football, you’re more likely to win games.”

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