As long as he has been part of the Rangers Team, the same comments surrounding our current captain have come up time and again.
- He can’t defend
- He’s almost like a forward
We all know he’s not the greatest defender we have been blessed with, yes he got slightly better, but his attacking qualities far outweigh the defensive ones that he possess. But that’s what he’s been told to do by a number of managers, get up the right side and support our attackers.
His goal return for a right back would embarrass some of the forwards we have had at our club, but what does that say about our overall play. Are we too heavily reliant on our right back, and do we need to change his role within the team so we don’t have to worry about him being caught out defensively?
As it stands he has 100 goals for the club, yes that’s right 100 – plus many assists too. On his day he can deliver the ball right onto the money – but recently his stats for his passing & crossing have started to dip.
As he get older (he will be 32 in October), you have to question whether we look at moving him up the park, so there is potentially less running for him to do, and it should negate the defensive errors (fingers crossed) and allow him to focus more on his attacking instincts, as if you look back at a number of our games how many times does Tav appear in the right place at the right time, he’s got an attackers instinct.
However, this would all be depending on whether we bring in a solid right back to complement the new right wing Tav, or does the manager change to a three at the back and use Tav and Yilmaz as wing backs (personally I feel that would maybe leave Tav more exposed). Either way we need to start to plan for life without Tav, as nothing ever lasts forever
Maybe the change of position is something that should have been done when young Patterson was coming through – hindsight is a great thing!!