The enduring Hugh Keevins, who loves to ruffle up feathers on both sides of the Old Firm, has created quite a few waves recently with his claim that only John Souttar stands a chance of lining up for Aberdeen, or that more to the point, that he is Rangers’ only player good enough to play for the Dons right now.
Naturally a lot of Rangers fans hurl all kinds of insults at the notorious ‘shock jock’ who does like to be at the centre of controversy and attention, but is there any sliver of truth in what he says?
It is just assumed by Rangers fans that ‘we have the better players’ because we spent £16M this window, but in reality, 9 points ahead of Rangers Aberdeen would protest that point vividly.
Few Rangers players have lived up to their arrival hype yet, only Connor Barron shining (more or less) consistently and Jefte surprising a few.
But we highly doubt Aberdeen are hankering to get the Brazilian in their team any time soon.
While Keevins does like to stir the hive, it’s hard to argue that Rangers in every single way right now are not only miles behind Celtic, but are far behind Aberdeen as well.
We aren’t massively in tune with events at Pittodrie, but they just sold their star striker for £7M and he’s now a Champions League striker, even if he’s yet to actually net for Girona – Rangers haven’t sold anyone for more than £4M since Fashion Sakala and Glen Kamara in 2023.
Rangers just have better players than Aberdeen? Says who? Just because we spent more on Igamane than Aberdeen did on their entire summer budget doesn’t mean he’s better than all the players they added.
Our summer business was horrendous, Igamane summed up the kind of subpar work done in that window by Philippe Clement and Nils Koppen, and it’s Aberdeen 9 points ahead and laughing. They’re even pushing Celtic this season.
Indeed it’s the best start for a non-OF side since 2018 and Hearts. Gives us memories of years ago and Jambos since July when George Burley’s side was trampling all over the league till mad Vladimir sacked him.
But Rangers don’t really have a leg to stand on here. Whether a better manager could get more out of these players we have no idea, but the reality is aside maybe Cerny, Balogun, Souttar and Sterling, few of Rangers’ players come close to delivering the level we need from them.
If that means Aberdeen’s players are better right now, it’s hard to completely dismiss that logic.