THIS is the damning stat of where Rangers would be without Kenny Miller…

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THIS is the damning stat of where Rangers would be without Kenny Miller…
 Article by: Greg Roots
 

The 2016/2017 SPFL Premiership season has concluded and it sees the curtains close on what has been a very poor campaign from the boys in blue. Most our fans did not expect to win the league this season, after all we have a playing squad budget two fifths the size of our closest rivals.

However, it was the way we surrendered any fight and were so well away from Celtic, and more worryingly Aberdeen, early in the season. A large factor in this was Mark Warburton’s lack of tactical flexibility, but having a squad packed full of players who do not have what it takes to pull on the famous blue jersey was a problem which meant we were posted missing every time the going got tough.

Players that were out of favour at teams like Wigan, Bradford and Hearts suddenly thought they were heroes and untouchable because they performed well in the Scottish Championship. The idolisation received by players like Holt and Waghorn meant that they thought they were Rangers class. At the time, winning the Petrofac Cup and Scottish Championship were the biggest moments in some of these player’s careers. That is simply not good enough, and the way in which we surrendered second place (as a bare minimum) to Aberdeen will be the final nail in the coffin for some of these player’s time at our great club.

The one continuous bright light in what was one of the worst seasons in our long history was Kenny Miller. He is a model professional, carries himself with great dignity and most importantly knows what it means to play for a club the size of ours. It is too easy to wonder how much worse off we would have been this season, but I have worked out how valuable his goal and assist contributions have been for us over the course of the league season. Of course, we would have faced an even earlier Scottish cup exit if Miller hadn’t grabbed two late goals against Motherwell at Ibrox.

Here we can see the final league table as it happened, including Miller’s 11 goals and 7 assists:

Then when we deduct points for Rangers that were won by Miller goals or assists, and then add the points which would have been gained by our opponents as a result, the final league table would look like this:

 

The harsh reality is that without Miler’s contribution, we wouldn’t be in Europe next season and we would only be in the top 6 by the skin of our teeth. Rangers without Kenny Miller are a borderline bottom 6 team. It is easy to suggest “oh but someone else would have stepped up” … No, no they wouldn’t have, because they didn’t. Our squad is full of very poor footballers, and as much as Miller is a great professional, a 37-year-old should not be bailing us out game after game.

Not much more can be said on this issue, the facts are damning. Our squad needs overhauled.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Isn't this a team game? U could prob do that for some other players too, fod comes to mind either.
    How about a bit of positive News today. Our manager decided again to put faith in some of our younger players. Those that we need to push on and become the rangers men we need.

    • EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING. WHY NOT PRAISE THE YOUNGSTERS INSTEAD OF SLATING THE TEAM AS USUAL

    • Ped just gets slated no matter what we do. People moans he's still playing the same players, and he brings in youth players (cause there is no one else) and then people complain he's to nieve playing these youngesters. I'm glad too see he has been trying different things with different people. Especially as the season was over weeks ago

  2. Good to end the season on a positive note. I'd buy 6 quality players that'd have the ability to go straight into the starting 11. A right-back (Paterson), a centre-back, central midfielder (Jack), a tricky attacking midfielder with 2 good feet (Jamie Walker, or Ryan Gauld on loan), and 2 strikers. No more than that.

    I'm not sure, but Liam Boyce (23 goals) at Ross County has a 500k release clause in his contract? (he's a tim, but wasn't Scott Brown a hun?).
    The bigger question is, would we celebrate in the same way if a ginger scored for us? I'd clap, of course, but I'm not sure I could smile about it…

  3. Enough of looking back. The young bloods like Aidan Wilson, Jamie Barjonas, David Bates, Bradley and a few others will be providing a big challenge for places next season with Bates, Wilson and Barjonas maybe alongside Rossiter, Jack, Alves, Weiss, Moult or whoever, really putting some sadly needed dig into this Rangers team. Paterson from Hearts would be another good fit for right back. Rangers WERE an easy target for criticism this season. However next season the desire of the young guns will meet the same desire of us fans. We will have a completely different team next season and with our encouragement a totally different mindset and confidence. I do wish Rangers media would tone it down. Too much of a spotlight given to individual interviews. Football is a team game. The manager is well able to talk for the team. They should be doing all their talking on the pitch.
    We all have our preferences. I would like to see Tavernier and Waghorn join the many others and follow Toral out of Ibrox.

    • Definitely McC, we've all had good reason to criticize the team and Pedro. But, putting my positivity glasses on, I'm very glad Pedro's given the youth a chance these last few weeks. It might have been forced on him, but I'd still say some of his decisions have been pretty brave where selection is concerned. I also like that he didn't panic whenever our young lads made mistakes (like Beerman in the OF); he still played them the following week, which can only be a boost for these kids' self-belief. While the business side of the club worries me a lot, I feel more positive – having seen the likes of Barjonas and Aidan Wilson today – about the footballing side. We're not going to be world-beaters any time soon, but at least we see some light coming through the cracks. And while Pedro's temperment worries me, I'm glad I don't have to listen to Warburton every week telling us what oustanding young talents we have in the undroppable Kiernan and Tavernier.

  4. Clear out needed with toral hyndman hill senderos already gone hopefully another 5 or 6 to go like waghorn holt halliday tavernier kiernan etc unfortunately apart from bates youngsters not up to it barones and beerman sadly will never be rangers class. We need good players brought in to replace others not squad players need a rb 2 cbs 3 cms and 2 quality attackers 7 (min) better players to replace current duds.

  5. Fair play to Pedro, he managed to shake off his Mr. Bean tag this afternoon. Our domination of the game was the second surprising thing I saw. The other was when I was driving towards Glasgow on the A9 between Perth and Stirling later in the afternoon. I drove past one of those stretch limousine cars. It wasn't a Hummer, but one of these old Mini's? Big, long thing. The sickly yellow colour and the numberplate (C2 OOL) was the first thing that caught my attention. As I overtook it, I could see there were about 30 hot ladies inside, all wearing bikinis. I have to say that the limo's chauffeur was grinning like a Cheshire cat. And no wonder – he was literally having his tweed blazer ripped off him by two female passengers. One very successful guy, whoever he was…

  6. This is not about Miller but about Suttons continuous animosity and hatred shown towards our club there is never any criticism about Brendas team he is a pundit or should it be an idiot employed by Bt and the daily rebel its about time we had a campaign to boycott these media sources

  7. No one can doubt Kenny Millers contribution this season and the statistics show how much Hevesy contributed and the failings of others and I include the previous managerial team.
    The rot set in in Ally McCoists second season when he opted to bring in players to supplement the team that had taken us out the 3rd division. He spent money on bringing players we didn't actually need and at a high wage cost. The Warburton regime did likewise, by targeting too many low quality, high wage players from the lower leagues in England.
    Like the mistakes McCoist made Warburton should have targeted the best players in the teams from the Scottish Premiership; I know this may have cost us but in my opinion we might have ended up in 3rd place like we are just now, but with reliable players we have confidence in and my point is that we would now be in a position to supplement our team with 3 or 4 players of a higher standard to at least secure 2nd place , closer to our arch rivals.
    I like most Gers fans would have wished for a better league position and many more comfortable and respectable results, but to be in 3rd position is not such a bad position to be in but I reiterate that performances could and should have been better.
    We need to make sure we keep a core of players; obviously the best ones but I am not prepared to get into a slanging match with anyone into who I think is better than others, although the obvious players have been mentioned who will be leaving and I have no doubt our new manager will eject Forester, Halliday, Kiernan and I suspect a few others. As I said we all have our opinions, but I do think he favours Waghorn and Dodoo so we might not see them go.
    We have a few weeks off now, but a long time till the summer recruitment time is over , we haven't even got to the stage of it opening yet, but Rangers have to act quick and get the right players to give value to the club; isn't that what Warburton said when he arrived?

  8. I can't stand motor mouth Sutton either. If he knew as much as he thinks he does and wasn't so biased he wouldn't be covering our games. He'd be on sky with the rest of the big boys. However his head would be even further up his own arse if we gave him boycott headlines. Ignore him as he's fast becoming a laughing stock with the unbiased pundits.

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