If Ibrox Noise had a pound for every time we hear about ‘needing Rangers defenders’ we’d probably not be rich, but we’d have enough for a rainy day.
So let’s look at it. Do Rangers actually need new defenders?
We can give you a big spoiler by telling you we don’t.
But there’s a little more to it.
Let’s examine each defender Rangers have, with the caveat of course that if anything better pops up, of course we can make a move.
We begin with John Souttar.
The Scotland international has never been a great. He’s been solid, dependable, and great at last-ditch blocks. His distribution has improved, and Danny Rohl rates him enough to work on a new contract with him. He does appear to be first choice defender. He scores highest of all Rangers central defenders on Sofascore, at 7.36 for the season so far. This carries a caveat, which we’ll get to.
Emmanuel Fernandez:
He’s the caveat. He scores 7.48. Why? Because of his goals. Defensively he is far from convincing. Unsure on the ball, lacks understanding with anyone, even though his stats are actually kind of ok. He is a £300,000 value defender from League One and he looks it.
Nasser Djiga:
His score on Sofascore is 7.08. Average for clearances, solid for tackles, the Wolves man hasn’t convinced too many of his quality, even if Ibrox Noise considers him a much better defender than most give him credit for. Was given some kudos v Ludogorets. Remember, he has more trophies than any player in our squad, and more league titles too.
Derek Cornelius:
Here’s the outlier. The Canada international scores a solid 7.33 and scores solid in tackles, and decent in interceptions. He’s a very decent defender who was shunted into an incoherent system and hasn’t been able to sparkle. There’s a lot more to come from him, and we have option to buy, an option we should take up.
The big issue here is Rangers are joint least conceded in the league. Alongside Hearts and Motherwell Rangers are bottom. This suggests while there’s always room for improvement, defence just isn’t a priority – we have four defenders, three of whom are theoretically ours.
While fans might scream that we need more stoppers, the reality is the numbers don’t back that up. Rangers have conceded 6 in the last 11 since that draw at Tannadice in all competitions.
We have won 7IAR.
There really is no case for replacing Rangers defenders.