It is now silly season as far as Rangers go, as if it has not been silly season as far as Rangers go for quite some considerable time. The latest silly season is a sudden Youssef Chermiti hype train as Rangers striker heralded as ‘the answer’. Chermiti’s opening season at Rangers certainly was not that of an £11M striker. It was nowhere near it. For a sudden hot hat trick at Falkirk to have elevated him into ‘let’s build the team around him next season’ territory is utterly absurd.
Chermiti hype makes little sense
Chermiti has bizarrely occasionally shown up and scored two or three goals in certain select matches. Overall, however, the boy has nowhere near delivered consistently this season. 11 goals in the regular league really is not good enough for £11M over the course of eight months. He bagged 4 in the Split but 3 were in that dead rubber.
The idea that Rangers are supposed to build around this guy for next season does seem to us to be rather laughable. The evidence that supports Rangers using him as the main striker is flimsy at best.
Chermiti has never been a prolific goalscorer. He has certain qualities physically, but he does not excel in any position that really needs any particular attributes to shine.
For example, as a striker, he does not score regularly and he misses a whole bunch. His goal rate is far too low. Therefore, as a second striker, he lacks the vision to set up and support. He does not have that to his game.
As a deeper number 10, it is much the same problem. Holding the ball up and being physical does not mean that he is of any use when it comes to passing the play on.
Rangers need much more from £11M signing
Basically, Chermiti does not seem to have strong attributes that entail him excelling in any particular position. He has pieces of each position, but not enough that he is actually any good in one.
This basically means that for £11M, you have a slight jack of all trades who is not particularly good at any of them.
The point is that Chermiti at £11M has not even come close to being value for money. He has not delivered anything like the return that we need.
Do we place our faith that he is just going to get it right for next season? Chermiti arrived last season in pre season with plenty of time to prepare for the new campaign and he was absolutely dire.
It is only since the Falkirk match, with him scoring three in a redundant dead rubber, that suddenly a piece of hype appears.
Walter Smith would never have tolerated this
Mainly, the hype is to build clicks. We know that and get that. We know that most of these sites are trying to get the traffic, but Chermiti does not deserve that kind of chance. He has not earned it.
Whether we would actually bin him at this point? Well yes, if a great offer comes in. If we get a great offer for him, we would absolutely sell him. We would totally 100% buy that. We know we rejected £13M for him and we’re still a speck scunnered about that.
But if no offer comes through, he certainly would not be our first choice striker for next season.
Could you imagine Youssef Chermiti being Walter Smith’s first choice striker? A guy who would take the likes of Daniel Cousin and Nikica Jelavić.
There is no way on God’s green earth that Walter Smith would tolerate Youssef Chermiti as his number nine. It is absurd.
Nevertheless, at the same time, many make the argument that this is not the Rangers of old, and they are probably not wrong. We would not mind having that one back, quite frankly instead of a Youssef Chermiti hype train.