Yes, it’s that man again, Lawrence Shankland. The slayer of tims is at it again as the Rangers man once more put the visitors to the sword and demonstrated as usual why he’s the most potent striker in Scotland.

We revealed stats recently which show he’s the worst in Scotland for turning the ball over, for losing it, and that might have put Rangers off making the move for him.

We also pointed out that in some respects Cyriel Dessers has actually recently equalled or overtaken the Scotland international.

But it’s clear when it comes to the raw currency of simply putting the ball in the back of the net, Shankland has no equal in Scotland and it was a massive ‘mistake’ not signing him.

Now there is a caveat – and that is that we couldn’t afford him. Simply put we had no money, and Shankland would have set Rangers back close to £6M.

So the mistake, which it was, was more in the general financial mismanagement of recent years which led to the position that we can’t afford the very player we need; a clinical finisher.

See, we’ve been a fraction more critical of Shankland recently, in defending Dessers, but there’s not a lot we can say when the boy scores two (should have been 3) v Celtic.

In stats which probably tell even more about the picture, Cyriel Dessers is number one in the SPL for big chances missed, with 20, while Shankland is less than half that, 9.

For pure SPL goals, Shankland has practically double Dessers – 20 to 12, and for shots conversion of the top scorers, the top 30, Shankland is 18.69% efficiency which is the highest of the lot aside James Tavernier, and of course, his penalties.

The bottom line is Shankland is more efficient where it counts, and even had one ruled out (probably wrongly) for offside today.

Shankland is, by a distance, the best striker in Scotland, and while Dessers is much-improved and many of his stats are actually pretty decent, overall, in this league, Shankland is in a class of his own.

We’d be stunned if this club doesn’t try to get him in the summer.