In Depth – Rangers’ full current squad assessed | OneFootball

That only new signing Hamza Igamane and resting Liam Kelly and Ianis Hagi were excluded from the trip to Eindhoven for Rangers does indicate the 28-man group that travelled to Holland is the state of play now for the Rangers squad and Ibrox Noise wanted to look in more depth this time at the quality we have.

Goals is more than ok – Butland, McCrorie and Kelly. Kieran Wright is gone.

Fullback is questionable. James Tavernier continues to be the first choice, and talk of him leaving seems to be fading. Has he decided to stay? His backup is Adam Devine, who we didn’t spot on the flight, and some want to include Dujon Sterling but Philippe Clement never selected him at RB once.

On the other side Ridvan Yilmaz is great and we like him a lot, but we can’t judge Jefte any more than we can Robbie Fraser. But the options are there.

Central?

Not spectacular. Connor Goldson continues to hang around like a bad smell, and Ben Davies remains entrenched too. The only decent defenders we have are John Souttar (who wasn’t outstanding last season) and Leon Balogun, who we all love. Clinton Nsiala is about 3 years old – one for the future. Leon King is some way short of good enough.

Into midfield and yes, there’s depth here.

We’ve added the promising Connor Barron, while a renaissance for Nico Raskin has been welcome. Mohamed Diomande is now a permanent, having cost £4.5M. Then there’s Cole McKinnon and Findlay Curtis not to mention Dujon Sterling. There’s also Kieran Dowell who appears surplus.

It lacks experience (aside Dowell) but there’s talent, pace, power and quality there for sure. This is a better area.

Attacking midfield is when things crash again. We have the mental Todd Cantwell who has been as rubbish on the pitch the past 12 months as he has on social media, while Tom Lawrence just hasn’t done it as a Rangers player and has been permanently injured. Ianis Hagi is surplus even if some Rangers fans want to fawn over his Euro 2024 cameos, while Alex Lowry is far from a Clement favourite.

Wings?

We have four men – Oscar Cortes (potentially brilliant), Rabbi Matondo (flattering to deceive but could use a run to build consistency), Scott Wright (abysmal and likely to exit) and Ross McCausland (lacking in quality and end product, but hard-working).

It’s threadbare that only one option here is remotely convincing, and given this manager is pro-wings and likes his flank men, the lack of quality here is concerning.

Striker:

This is unconvincing again. Cyriel Dessers, the most divisive man at Ibrox, is about our star man, and he’s pretty much a goner. Danilo has only just regained fitness but is much more a 9 than a centre forward. He’s just not a target man. And Zak Lovelace’s position at Ibrox is unclear while Sam Lammers is working on his permanent exit. Hamza Igamane is the new shiny signing but we can’t exactly cast much judgement here.

Verdict?

It’s evidence how much work Rangers still require in this squad. A tonne of chafe, far too little wheat, and only a small number of players that seem good enough for the club.

Butland, Balogun, Souttar, Ridvan, Raskin, Diomande, Barron, Sterling, Cortes, and we hope Danilo and we guess this Igamane… are about the only players we have a speck of faith in.

In fairness it’s not horrible, but it’s still massively undercooked.

Work to do.