It was always going to happen, in a season where Rangers have struggled for strikers, Cedric Itten leaves and hasn’t stopped scoring.
Rangers managed to recoup most of their money on the Swiss international when the then 25-year old departed for Young Boys, however, they must be laughing now given his return in front of goal.
Rewarded with a league team of the year place, Cedric Itten’s 23 goals shouldn’t come as a surprise.
When Steven Gerrard signed Kemar Roofe and Itten in the summer of 2020, it was expected that they would fight it out for a starting place with Alfredo Morelos set to leave.
The enigmatic Colombian stayed at Ibrox and reported £3m man Itten found himself down the pecking order.
It didn’t help that Jermain Defoe seemed to score every time he came off the bench or started a game either.
The numbers that mean Cedric Itten could have been a Rangers success
The season before Itten signed, he had scored 20 goals with seven assists in a league that is more competitive than the Scottish Premiership even if it doesn’t have quite the dominance at the top.
This season, compared to the best seasons of Roofe, Morelos and Antonio Colak in this campaign, he has shown exactly what we have been missing, with statistics provided by FBRef.com.
Itten has more goals and assists in total and per 90 minutes, even Roofe’s best of a goal every 0.98 games is still some way behind.
In terms of shooting accuracy, Itten is out in front again with 53.1%, some 5% higher than Morelos in his best season at Rangers and 8% more than Roofe.
Cedric Itten is a great example of good scouting gone wrong through no fault of the player, or even the club.
He scored key goals for Rangers but, last season when he finally got his chance, he was either injured or suffering from the effects of long covid.
Luck just wasn’t on his side.
When you look at Itten’s profile, he is exactly what Rangers should be looking for and it would be a massive surprise if he doesn’t get a bigger move this summer – unfortunately, it won’t be to Ibrox though.