When Rangers last won the league, the player of the year could almost have been anyone in the regular starting XI.
It wasn’t just one or two players who were key, even unsung heroes of that campaign like Ianis Hagi still chipped in with 20 goal contributions.
The record breaking defence was also hugely underrated, with only Allan McGregor coming out with any awards at the end of the campaign, despite Connor Goldson and his colleagues being just as important.
Compare and contrast with the current Rangers squad.
The player of the year awards were a foregone conclusion in that only Nicolas Raskin can be content with his efforts and Hamza Igamane as young player of the year has shown that he could be the main man next season.
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Craig Moore slams John Souttar for Rangers performance
One of the other winners from the Rangers awards was John Souttar, who picked up the John Greig achievement award.
Unfortunately, the Scotland international’s current form is as bad as any in the squad with Craig Moore, speaking on the Go Radio Football Show, clearly not impressed with his latest performance:
“I thought he was really poor,” Moore said of Souttar’s display against St Mirren.
“And that’s, again, these, you know, when you hear Barry talking about it, you hear before that and you hear people after about mentality. These are the type of games, even when it seems like there’s nothing really at stake.
“When you’re playing for Rangers, there’s always something at stake and that performance was nowhere near good enough.
“I think it’s a big problem. If you don’t nominate (Nicolas) Raskin as your player of the year, who else are you coming up with? And there’s no one there.”
Does Souttar have a future as a Rangers starter?
Moore is right. After Raskin, who is there? Vaclav Cerny? Igamane?
There’s certainly not been anyone consistent enough to stake a claim for the PFA or Scottish Writer’s awards.
To win the Scottish Premiership, as in 2020/21, Rangers need to be providing multiple players across the board.
Souttar is, aside from Cameron Carter-Vickers, probably the best centre-half in the league, and yet, despite his experience, he is still capable of making errors of concentration and basic mistakes.
He hasn’t been helped by changing partners or formation on an almost weekly basis, but as a potential club captain, he should be setting the example.
Just as it looked as though Rangers had one of the centre-half positions secured, Kevin Thelwell and Nils Koppen have just as much work to do as when Steven Gerrard first arrived at Ibrox in 2018.
Goals win games, but a sold defence wins league titles.
