What's gone wrong with Rangers striker Kemar Roofe this season?

Capable of leading the line or slotting into one of the two inside 10 positions favoured by Gerrard, Roofe found himself shifted around the front three and rarely disappointed. By the end of the season, he had a title winner’s medal draped around his neck, finished as the club’s top scorer in the league in their historic championship win and even had a Puskas Award contender under his belt, thanks to his spectacular strike against Standard Liege.

It was a fine campaign from someone taking their first steps in Scottish football but Roofe has been unable to repeat the trick the second time around. The 29-year-old found himself in and out of the starting XI on Gerrard’s watch and was a regular substitute in the games where he was benched but the Jamaica internationalist has found game time hard to come by since Giovanni van Bronckhorst has taken the reins at Ibrox.

Part of this, of course, is due to the knock he suffered shortly after the Dutchman’s arrival. Injury disrupted his progress during the early days of Van Bronckhorst’s tenure, leaving Roofe playing catch-up with his team-mates. But the reality is that the main reason that the former Leeds man has been struggling for minutes is that when he has played lately, Roofe has rarely convinced.

Unreasonable expectations are perhaps part of the problem, too. Roofe provided more goals per 90 league minutes played than any other Rangers player last season but he was significantly out-performing his expected goals (xG) over the course of the season. He averaged an xG per 90 of 0.57 last term but was scoring 0.78 goals per 90 – a huge discrepancy, and one that suggests his goal return was unsustainable. Roofe was in the top three per cent of the Premiership’s ‘overperformers’ in this regard.

This season, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Roofe’s attacking output has plummeted across a variety of metrics as the graphic below shows but pay particular attention to his xG and goals per 90. Roofe’s xG has dropped a bit but still remains relatively high (suggesting that while he is not getting as many high-quality chances, the ones he is presented with are still pretty good) but his goal rate has dropped to 0.31 per 90.

These problems were evident when Gerrard was still in charge and Van Bronckhorst’s appointment has only exacerbated them. There had been the odd goal from open play but three of Roofe’s six Premiership goals this term have arrived via the penalty spot and the striker’s influence in the final third is waning as time marches on.

The blindingly obvious issue facing Roofe since Van Bronckhorst took charge happens to be a pretty simple one: for someone whose job it is to put the ball in the back of the net, he really doesn’t hit all that many shots. Against Lyon in the Europa League he played 74 minutes and mustered a solitary effort at goal. It was the same when he came off the bench for the last 20 minutes against Stirling Albion in the Scottish Cup, while he fared a little better in the 3-3 draw with Ross County, shooting twice. A full 90 minutes against Celtic and 34 against Livingston failed to produce a single effort at goal but Roofe fared better (as you’d expect) against part-time Annan Athletic in the Scottish Cup. Six shots were produced – one went in, while the other five were off-target.

A huge factor in this decline lies in the change in shape instituted by Van Bronckhorst. The two inside 10s used by Gerrard – a position that allowed Roofe to play as a sort of inside forward/support striker – have been replaced by natural wingers and the roles of the front three have changed significantly. The wide players tend to hug the byline, leaving the centre-forward with two or three centre-backs to contend with as the opponents’ backline is stretched.

It's a big problem for Roofe, who doesn’t really fit the requirements of either role at present. The forward lacks the dribbling ability and pace to operate as an out-and-out winger and doesn’t possess the physical presence of someone like Alfredo Morelos to occupy central defenders. Roofe produces his best football when his team-mates are close by and short, neat incisive passes can be played amongst them. Move them a few yards further out and, all of a sudden, Roofe can cut a very isolated figure.

A look at Roofe’s goal distribution by position from last season shows us as much. He finished the campaign with 18 goals in all competitions but in the 13 games where he played as a centre-forward, he scored just four times. On the 16 occasions he featured in one of the inside 10 roles, he scored 13 times.

This tells us that Roofe struggles with leading the line himself but when in a support role deployed near to the centre-forward, he can be deadly. The graphic below shows where Roofe’s goals from last season (minus penalties) were scored from on the pitch and it is notable how closely it resembles that of a traditional striker.

Roofe may have been playing nominally as No10 but in terms of chance creation, he was really operating as a striker. Almost all of his goals arrived from in between the posts and less than 15 yards out and it was in this area where he was inflicting the most damage. Compare and contrast the image above with the one below that shows where Roofe has been hitting his shots from this season and we can see where things have been going wrong.

What we have is a scattered, disparate plot that shows Roofe has not been getting into the same areas that he was last season – or, if he is, he’s failing to get a shot away when the ball is eventually worked to him. The number of passes he receives per game has dropped from 19.14 last year to 15.5 this season, which hints at a degree of passivity on Roofe’s part. This implies the problem lies with the forward’s positioning in the new system and suggests that if he can improve in this regard, he might just be able to recapture his old form.

It will require serious change on Roofe’s part, though. If the 29-year-old is to have a future under Van Bronckhorst at Ibrox, he will have to adapt his style of play. The arrival of Amad Diallo points to a system where out-and-out wingers will be preferred to inside forwards and it’s difficult to envisage Roofe evolving into the type of player that his manager wants in that position. He simply lacks many of the prerequisite skills.

The centre-forward role is one that Roofe could grow into with a little work on the training pitch. He lacks the physicality of a Morelos and can’t occupy defenders in the same way but these deficiencies can be overcome with clever play. Roofe has shown in the past that he has the predatory instincts to out-fox defenders in their box by darting in front of them with a well-timed run – it is simply a matter of getting back to good habits within Van Bronckhorst’s system.

Change is required and Roofe will not have too long to do so. He has failed to make much of an impression thus far on the new manager’s watch and he has between now and the end of the campaign to show is capable of contributing regularly and effectively.

The next few months will determine whether Roofe will find himself as an unfortunate casualty of the change in system implemented by Van Bronckhorst, as a regrettable but necessary victim of collateral damage, or whether he can be reborn as an out-and-out striker capable of playing as a lone wolf and salvage his future at Rangers.