Some Rangers fans have this evening turned on Ryan Kent after today’s performance v Aberdeen, following our rating of both he and Fashion Sakala.

Following a fantastic afternoon of four goals, Rangers supporters were delighted to see the side deliver a good SPL performance, which has been a rarity this season, but Ibrox Noise’s ratings got a majority of rage from supporters who were livid to see Kent get eight while Sakala only got six.

The minority agreed with and understood the score, but for those who didn’t:

If scores were all about effort, the majority today were 10/10.

But that’s not how football should ever be graded, and if it was, Scott Wright would be our best player.

Looking at the real numbers from today, let’s compare how effective Sakala and Kent actually were:

Shots, Kent 3, Sakala, 6. On target? 1 each.

Key passes, so, major passes which made a difference: Kent 6, Sakala 4.

Passing accuracy, so, how many times their passes found a team mate: Kent 92%, Sakala 78%.

Dribbles, Kent 3 Sakala 6.

Crosses, Kent 3, Sakala 4, but none of Sakala’s were accurate and two of Kent’s were.

Fouls: Sakala 3, Kent 0.

Tackles, Sakala 3, Kent 0.

Interceptions and clearances: Kent 2, Sakala 0.

In truth, we accept our 6 might have been slightly harsh, but we would never go more than 7 for Sakala. And we stand by the 8 for Kent.

See, we didn’t deny Sakala’s effort or workrate, but funnily enough he didn’t play much better than he has this season: it was just on a feelgood match like this, where we won so well, he looked more impressive and his workrate particularly shone through.

Instead of his running up a blind alley going nowhere, it was now ‘hard working and bursting a gut’. It was easy to praise him playing the same style of match he usually does (albeit he did have a better match than normal) when the team won.

But the aggro we’re seeing in the same breath over Kent who had effectively a similar match but was far more efficient with his final product (wasted few passes and got in accurate crosses) is a little unfair.

Yes, we might have been a bit harsh on Sakala, but the eagerness of many to praise him at the expense of attacking Kent is a bit sad.

A final word is whoscored’s ratings for both: 7.79. That’s right, the forensic stats site gave them exactly the same score.

So, apparently, we’re all wrong!