With all the serious business getting closer, we thought we’d take an
irreverent look at something utterly irrelevant and completely useless
here at Ibrox Noise:

Social media followings.

In specific, Twitter.

In
short, which Rangers players are the most popular among the fans, and
which ones definitely have less of a following? Which players do we want
to know are having spaghetti for lunch, and which ones do we give no
hoots about what kind of car they have?

We have your top 10 Rangers players, in reverse.

10: Greg Docherty.

Arguably
Joe Aribo’s rival for the 10 shirt, Docherty’s place under Gerrard is
always on a shoogly peg, but the boyhood fan does well with the
followers and manages 47,700 of them.

9: Ross McCrorie.

He’s back at Ibrox and took part in the Hamilton win, and fans really like the lad. 55,900 of them are on his Twitter account.

8: Jamie Murphy.

Kind
of been a bit-part player since he arrived, and ended up farmed out on
loan last season, but it’s not stopped 62,500 fans following his moves
online.

7: Allan McGregor.

Despite his
illustrious place among the fans, it’s not quite reflected with the
online support, and only 68,200 punters follow him. We thought his name
would earn more.

6: Steven Davis.

The NI legend hits a very solid 70,400 but like McGregor we’d have expected a little higher on his part.

5: Scott Arfield.

We’re
getting into the serious ones now. Arfield with 73,100 fans is
definitely a favourite, and while marginally lower than we’d assumed,
it’s still solid.

4: Ryan Kent.

The club’s second highest signing is not surprisingly popular on Twitter, weighing in at 78,000 followers.

3: Alfredo Morelos.

Given
his past relationship with the fans, and the club, we truly thought
he’d be much higher, albeit he’s still third. 87,200 followers trail
from his account.

2: James Tavernier.

Despite
his form and divisive qualities Tavernier is a hugely popular figure on
Twitter with an impressive 194,300 followers. But he’s dwarfed by the
number one.

1: Jermain Defoe.

True,
his career and rep have earned him a huge following, but this is by far
the most popular Rangers player on social media, with an incredible
991,300 followers.

In truth Defoe has earned it – the
man is class, a true gentleman and a fine ambassador for both the sport
and his club, not to mention his country. Barely a soul has a bad word
to say about the striker.

But if we’re talking about
players who earned their reputation at Ibrox, Tavernier is clearly the
strongest of the lot, albeit he has been here five years now. That said,
Morelos has been here three and isn’t even close to half of Tav’s
numbers.

The moral of the story?

Morelos
is nowhere near as popular as we’d think, or as he used to be,
Tavernier is far more popular than he’s given credit for, and the Scotty
Arfields and Ryan Kents of this world have a very strong following too
despite especially how the latter was criticised for his displays last
season.

But they all get hammered by Defoe whose following is legendary, like the man himself.

Disclaimer:
this was just for fun, a bit of a light distraction. Ibrox Noise does
not present the content of this piece as a scientific measurement of
players’ popularity.