A former Rangers midfielder talks about leaving a Premier League club: “I knew I wasn’t in the plans.”

The Brighton & Hove Albion player believed he was forced to quit Chelsea because the number of opportunities for first tea kept decreasing.

This week, the group stages of the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, and Europa Conference League begin, bringing back the focus on European competition.

While Rangers begin their season in the second tier league on Thursday when Real Betis comes to Ibrox, Celtic lost on the road to Feyenoord last night by a score of 2-0. Aberdeen, the lone representative of Scotland in the UECL, will be playing on Thursday when they head to Frankfurt.

Billy Gilmour, a former Rangers star, will welcome AEK Athens to the AMEX Stadium along with his teammates from Brighton & Hove Albion. Gilmour will also be back in action in Europe this week. The Scotland international made just 22 first team appearances for the Blues during his five years at Stamford Bridge, despite winning the Champions League with former side Chelsea.

Before he could play any senior football for the Glasgow club, the London club snatched up the midfielder from Ardrossan born Rangers junior academy in 2017 and loaned him to Norwich City in 2021/22. He signed a four-year contract with Premier League rivals Brighton last summer.

The Scotland international has since talked about what happened behind the scenes before to the transfer in an interview with talkSPORT. “When I returned from my loan with Norwich, I had pre-season, and I just wasn’t in the plans,” he claimed. I ultimately left the first team during preseason to join the reserves. As a result, I and two other boys were informed while we were in America for preseason.”As for myself, I realised right away that I wasn’t in the plans, and at that time I was thinking, well, I want to be at a club that really loves me and I want to be a part of the squad. I want to play for the first team. I have a craving for it. Now that I’ve played for my country, I want to try to advance. It was the appropriate moment for me to depart. Thomas Tuchel, the manager at the time, and I had a conversation about this.