HAVING attacking threats across the pitch is vital for a club with high aspirations, with the careful recruitment and development under both Steven Gerrard and Giovanni van Bronckhorst in recent years helping raise the offensive potential of Rangers.
A metric that can be deployed to measure the creativity of individual players within a team is key passes. A key pass is a pass that is directly followed by an attempt at goal, with StatsBomb allowing us to delve into individual key pass maps for every Rangers player last season.
Focussing firstly on the players who predominantly occupy the left-hand side of the pitch in an attacking sense, there are interesting differences between the locations of Calvin Bassey’s key passes and those of Borna Barisic.
Bassey, as identified below, prefers to play cut-back passes towards the penalty spot, with several also landing at the far side of the penalty box.
Barisic, meanwhile, boasts a more eclectic mix, with a considerably higher percentage of his key passes being met in the six-yard box. Both players tend to cross from similar positions, although the Nigerian has a lower volume considering he has played the position less on average.
It flags up a potential area of improvement for the 22-year-old. Although he is just as adept as the Croatian at overlapping and delivering from wide in the final third, there perhaps isn’t sufficient variation on his crosses, with deliveries aimed into the six-yard area historically proving dangerous in terms of chance conversion.
Ryan Kent, in the meantime, tends to pull the ball across goal at a high rate after attacking the byline, as evidenced by the advanced positioning of his key pass starting locations.
Similarly, the 25-year-old enjoys playing passes through the corners of the penalty box, with opponents seemingly more keen on preventing him from running down the line and opening up direct passing entries into the danger area as a result.
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When Rangers find themselves level in matches, meanwhile, Kent tends to deliver from even closer to the byline.
Most interesting, however, is the activity of Fashion Sakala Jr. The Zambian is rough around the edges in terms of his play style, but his key passes last term add credence to the notion that he creates chaos in the penalty area.
The majority of Sakala’s key pass locations start inside the penalty box, suggesting he’s proficient at dribbling into the danger area and laying the ball off to teammates if he encounters traffic. The forward rarely looks to create outside the penalty area, although it’s interesting to note that a higher percentage of his key passes from slightly deeper areas in the final third originate on the left-hand side.
Moving infield, the departing Joe Aribo’s key pass map from last campaign highlights his right-sided bias. The Nigerian tended to dribble his way into the penalty area before playing short, cutting passes to break through congested pockets of defenders.
Aribo’s exit is likely to leave Rangers’ right-hand side understaffed, underlining the requirements for another right-sided attacker.
Ianis Hagi, meanwhile, had his campaign curtailed in January after sustaining a knee injury last season. The Romanian was more capable of playing key passes over a long distance compared to Aribo.
Similar to the Nigerian, Hagi tended to operate closer to the right-hand side. The verticality of his passes highlights his ability to play directly through the opposition’s defensive lines.
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Scott Arfield offered greater variation in his key passes last term than his midfield peers given his ability to combine in tight spaces.
The former Burnley man boasted a nice split between the left and right-hand side, with his longer passes tending to find both the full-backs and wingers in space.
It is no surprise that James Tavernier ended last season with the highest volume of key passes. Noticeably, the Rangers captain tended to deliver crosses from deep on the right-hand side.
The 30-year-old also showed impressive variation in the end location of his crosses, with a healthy volume directed close to goal as opposed to the vicinity of the penalty spot.
Tavernier became the go-to man in sticky situations for Rangers last term, digging the side out of several holes towards the end of Gerrard’s tenure. The Englishman’s key pass map when accounting for the periods when the Gers were drawing in games reflects the onus placed upon him.
Scott Wright, meanwhile, played a more prominent role under van Bronckhorst towards the end of last season. The former Aberdeen winger proved reliable at getting to the byline and pulling the back across goal, as illustrated in his map below.
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