We’re seeing a tonne of praise these days for James Tavernier, and even regulars to the site will know our formerly-scathing tones towards the club captain have softened a lot and we’ve been giving him way more credit.

This was in part inspired by learning that, statistically, at the time (we’ve not checked recently) he was the SPL’s most important and effective player, among the top three consistently in tackles, shots and assists, which are respectively defensive and attacking the most important contributions on the pitch.

The numbers may have changed since then, we might do a refresh, but there’s no arguing he’s statistically the SPL’s best-rated player this season on the likes of Sofascore and Whoscored.

But the big word now being banded about is ‘legend’.

He’s in the Hall of Fame (even if Ibrox Noise and many others didn’t agree with his induction at the time) and some fans are looking at his career numbers and comparing him with other defenders like Ronald Koeman and Laurent Blanc due to his astonishing goals.

Unfortunately for Tav, because of his relatively low trophy haul despite being Rangers captain, for us he falls a bit short of being a legend.

Steven Davis and Allan McGregor, inducted on the same day, clearly are Rangers legends – they played at Premier League level, soared in Europe, rampaged for their countries and were proper Rangers-level players.

Few can question that.

The fact there’s a lot of debate over Tav probably sums up the problem:

If there’s any disagreement that the player is a legend, he probably isn’t.

The strange dichotomy for Tav is that he actually DID do it in Europe – in the Champions League he scored, and in the Europa League his numbers are among the best in the competition: 17 goals and assists in 45 for a RB is rather impressive, and even in Champions League qualifying Tav has 5 goals and assists in 10 appearances.

His European numbers speak for themselves, no doubt about it.

But he’s supposed to be a right back, and legendary for that – Blanc and McGregor, for example, are legends for defending and goalkeeping, with Blanc having the incredible feather to his cap of his goal rates and McGregor’s goalkeeping in Europe seeing some of the most ludicrous stops we’ve ever seen.

Tav is surely not a legend for his overall defending.

If Tav was as good a defender/RB as his assists and goals offered, he just wouldn’t be playing in the SPL.

So we’d concede on some level his contribution to goals and assists at Ibrox is definitely legendary, but we can’t say his overall career has been.

He’s a dichotomy for sure, with the ‘what a return for a defender’ said about him a lot.

He drags Rangers through matches at times, and scores and assists single handedly.

But end of the day, he’s a pretty average RB when it comes to the pure guts of defending and has been heavily culpable for many goals conceded.

So what does it all mean?

This is just our opinion, if you think the guy is a legend, period, you’re entitled to that.

But we don’t think it’s quite as black and white as that question.

But what do we know?