After making a winning start to life as manager in mid-week, perhaps things are looking up for Rangers under Barry Ferguson.
This certainly didn’t appear to be the case for the Ibrox side 14 minutes into Wednesday’s clash, given that the Gers found themselves 2-0 down at Kilmarnock.
Nevertheless, goals from Václav Černý and then Nedim Bajrami, with Cyriel Dessers bagging a brace in-between, saw the Light Blues fight back and leave Rugby Park victorious.
This is the first time since 2010 that Rangers have won a Premiership away game in which they were two goals down, that comeback coming at Pittodrie under the legendary Walter Smith.
So now, ahead of Motherwell’s visit to Ibrox on Saturday and then, far more importantly, the upcoming Europa League last 16 tie against Fenerbahçe, has Ferguson found his own version of Kris Boyd, a duo who played 111 matches together, who can fire Rangers to victory in İstanbul?
Kris Boyd's Rangers legacy
Kris Boyd is a bona fide Rangers legend, having scored 126 goals for the club across two spells, on target, on average, every 118 minutes, winning two Premiership titles, two Scottish Cups and two League Cups.
Given that he also netted 132 times for Kilmarnock across three spells in Ayrshire, Boyd is the top-scorer in SPL history (1998-present), despite the fact, as Graham Ruthven of the Soccer 101 podcast puts it, ‘technically, Boyd wasn’t great’ but he was an ‘incredible finisher’, leading the line at a time when Rangers were extremely dominant.
So, here are all the players who have scored 100+ goals in SPFL top division history; it’s not a very long list but one that illuminates just how good Boyd was at the peak of his powers.
Kris Boyd
Rangers, Kilmarnock
217
Henrik Larsson
Celtic
151
Leigh Griffiths
Celtic, Hibs, Dundee
121
Scott McDonald
Celtic, Motherwell
115
Anthony Stokes
Celtic, Hibs, Falkirk
102
Boyd himself won the Premiership’s Golden Boot on five separate occasions, while his tally of 32 goals in the 2005/06 season, during which he joined from Killie in January, has only been bettered by one Rangers player, namely Ally McCoist in the early-90s, since WWII.
So, how this modern-day Rangers team would love to have an equally clinical finisher in their ranks, but could Ferguson have found his own version of Boyd?
Rangers' modern-day Kris Boyd
In an otherwise generally miserable season, Hamza Igamane has really shone.
He arrived from AS FAR in his native Morocco for just £1.7m last summer, earning rave reviews, hence why the CIES Football Observatory believe he is now worth more than £13m, representing almost an 800% increase in value.
Meantime, in January, amidst interest from Everton, it was reported that Rangers had set a £25m price tag on their star striker, which would be the club’s record outgoing transfer fee, currently held by Calvin Bassey’s £19.6m move to Ajax.
For now, the 22-year-old remains a Rangers player, described by Matthew Elder of the Scotsman as the Premiership’s ‘signing of the season’, while Keith Jackson also of the Daily Record, labels him a ‘superstar’ given his incredible form.
Scottish football writer Kai Watson simply believes Igamane to be ‘destined for big things’, encouraging Rangers supporters to ‘enjoy him while he’s here’.
Igamane has 13 goals to his name this season, memorably bagging a perfect hat-trick at Easter Road in January, while also on target four times during the Europa League league phase, and it is his European statistics we want to examine in more detail.
Goals
4
8th
Goals per 90
1.01
2nd
Shots
11
106th
Shots on target
6
58th
Shots on target %
54.5%
50th
Goals per shot
0.36
12th
Goals – xG
+2.9
1st
As the table outlines, and the reason why Igamane is being compared to Boyd, is the fact he is a clinical finisher.
He ranks second in this season’s Europa League for goals per 90, behind only Rasmus Højlund, while the final row of the table is the most interesting, given that he ranks first for goals – xG, scoring four times from a tiny expected goals figure of +1.1.
So, if Ferguson’s side are going to make any headway in Europe, they’ll need their Moroccan centre-forward to continue to be in fine form on the continent.
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