Lots of Rangers fans and pundits are waxing lyrical about Mikey Moore’s performance against Kilmarnock. He did have a whale of a time. At £15M market value rating, despite being a loan, Mikey Moore has a big price tag on his head, and his start to life at Ibrox has been inauspicious at best, and at times inconspicuous at worst.
Performances
Moore just hasn’t really been able to truly perform. He did eke out a little bit of improved displays towards the end of 2025, but then injury struck, and then derailed him somewhat. His progress at Rangers has been stuttered, but that performance against Kilmarnock has definitely raised a few eyebrows and has had some articles questioning whether he is a long term solution for some of Rangers’ attacking problems, as discussed in this Ibrox Noise piece. Ibrox Noise was impressed by what we saw. Of course we were, but at the same time, there are many caveats to bring out before we jump up and down and scream that Mikey Moore is Lionel Messi.
Context Matters
First of all, let’s not forget that Kilmarnock were down to 10 men, basically for the whole match. Having lost a man inside four minutes, which in itself was as a result of Moore, which we will get to in a moment, Killie were on technically the ropes from the word go, something already raised when Rangers faced a big decision over Tottenham’s Mikey Moore. Playing the entire 90, give or take, with 10 men is not an easy thing to do.
However, the caveat to that is that Moore had already produced against the 11 men with an outstanding through ball which led to the penalty. So let’s not entirely degrade his display based on the number of players he was up against. He did it when they were at full complement too, as previously analysed when asking just what Rangers have got in a £20M Premier League star.
Moore’s Impact
However, he did shine regardless of what the numbers of the opponents were. He had an absolute royal time of it on the left hand side, and well known Rangers pundit and former defender Maurice Ross was on punditry duties that night, screaming at his teammates to give Moore the ball, a performance that has fuelled discussion around the likely fee Rangers may need to sign Moore permanently.
Moore was getting so much joy down the left, he was tearing Kilmarnock to pieces and they had no answer for him. Five goals on the night suggested that he had one heck of a time, even if he didn’t score exactly all of them. He certainly deserved the one he got and, of course, the assist as well. Moore was having a good night, which explains why his situation continues to be tracked via wider transfer aggregation coverage.
The Money Question
Does this mean, however, that Rangers should sign him permanently. The good news there, of course, is that money is not the object it once was. This is not to say that we have a blank cheque book, but it does mean that with the 49ers and their investment, purchasing more expensive players is distinctly possible now, as reflected in reports about Rangers attempting to secure another Mikey Moore deal.
If Andreas Skov Olsen performs, he will be signed for £9M. We’ve already done the same with Chermiti, again £9M. Rangers spent a theoretical £23M in January, albeit £9M of that is, of course, for the summer purchase of Olsen, should we take up that offer. Otherwise, it’s still around £14M for winter, which is a very impressive number at that time of year.
So Mikey Moore’s addition being worth around about £15M plus, we’re sure there could be a deal on that, and Rangers can still afford that level of player now, which is quite a change from the olden days.
Level of Opposition
However, is he one we want to. The truth here is that Moore needs to do that against better teams. He’s done it against quite a few bottom feeders. Killie, second bottom, in desperation bringing in Neil McCann and Billy Dodds to try to save them from relegation, aren’t exactly in the best state right now.
Yes, they beat Aberdeen, but Aberdeen were down to 10 men, and this was a hungry display at Rugby Park where they were absolutely desperate at home to get that win. Aberdeen, of course, not only down to 10 men, are absolutely mince these days. So we’re not sure how much you can take of either Rangers beating Kilmarnock or Kilmarnock beating Aberdeen.
There are quite a few caveats in all directions.
Wider Rangers Performance
But let’s not take too much away from Mikey Moore’s performance . He shone when other players in Rangers’ XI did not. This is not all about Kilmarnock being down to 10 men and Moore having a field day with that. Other players in Rangers’ team didn’t shine.
We did okay. It was a bright performance in the end, but it took far too long to get there. It was a smash and grab because Kilmarnock shone way too much for their position at Ibrox and nearly scored more than once. Jack Butland had to be on some decent form, and Rangers really struggled to get any shots on target.
Once we finally did, and once we started to shine a bit better, yes, things looked better once the goals started going in. But Kilmarnock looked bright. They looked strong and quite frankly, tactically outfoxed Rangers.
Neil McCann outfoxed Danny Rohl for far too long before Rohl finally got that second goal, that second excellent strike from Bojan Miovski. That was the one that pretty much killed Killie for good.
So Do Rangers Keep Him
Nevertheless, Moore’s performance cannot be denigrated. He shone well. Would we take him permanently. The answer is potentially, if he produces that level against better teams.
We need to beat a team in the league who have a settled manager and who are in good form. That is to say, Rangers are yet under Danny Rohl to beat a single SPL team whose manager is settled and who are in decent form. We just haven’t really done that.
The only occasion we can think of really would be slim pickings of Motherwell, in which Fernandez got a fortuitous handball ignored, and of course, the win against Hibs, twice. They, of course, are using David Gray these days as their manager, and they’re reasonably settled middle table.
But overall, in terms of the upper echelons of the league, Rangers haven’t had the best results or indeed performances. Heck, that even applies to the lower teams too.
If Rohl and indeed Moore can get those displays and results against the better teams, then yes, we would want to keep Moore because he is talented. Would he want to stay. Well, he claims that his entire family is pretty much a bunch of Rangers fans. Mikey Moore’s performance v Killie has changed some pictures.
So unless he’s giving lip service to the galleries, he probably wants to stay too. But it just depends. We’ll see how things go towards the end of the season. There is no option to purchase, but we’re sure if Muir wants to stay, then there may well be something that can be done. Time will tell.