Ibrox Noise would like to exclusively reveal a stunning new stat which confirms that Cyriel Dessers has now at least levelled with or overtaken Lawrence Shankland in every striker metric that matters, making him the Scottish Premiership’s most in-form striker now and bypassing the Hearts captain.
If we look at goals and assists since Philippe Clement came in, Dessers has 17 in 23. Shankland has, all season, 29 in 35. It is almost completely identical.
But the really interesting stuff comes in shots on and off target.
Did you know that Dessers, in fact, gets EXACTLY the same number on target all season as Shankland, 37 to 37 (including his weaker Beale spell) but has had less shots in total?
He’s managed 73 to Shankland’s 97.
Furthermore, shots off target?
Shankland 38, Dessers 20.
One of these men is a lot more efficient and we can assure you it’s not the Hearts captain.
For all the fans’ exasperation at Dessers for being ‘wasteful’, Lawrence Shankland is considerably more so, and the only aspect Shankland is fractionally better in is that he has scored more of his shots on target – 18 in 37 to Dessers’ 12 in 37.
Bojan Miovski?
77 shots in total, 13 goals, 32 shots on target. 25 off target.
He’s kind of in the middle, one extra goal, slightly higher conversion rate than Dessers, slightly more shots in total, but has missed a few more too.
In simple terms, Rangers would have really been no better off in attack for having either Miovski or Shankland over Dessers.
Dispossessed? Shankland remains a league of his own with 61, no Rangers player comes close. Unsuccessful touches? He’s top there too, average of 3.4 a match with 92 total.
Dessers is nowhere to be seen in these metrics.
Long story short, Rangers are data-driven these days, and that data made a call that having Miovski or Shankland would not put us in a better place than what Dessers has.
The numbers we’ve seen back that up completely.