According to one pundit, if Rangers’ £3 million had a bit more ferocity, a bit more intensity, a bit more ‘poison’ running through his veins, then he’d be contracted not to the Scottish Premiership outfit but to one of the giants of Spanish football.
This is certainly not a question of talent.
But the Rangers supporters who watched one of Mick Beale’s most ill-fated signings stumble through six months at Ibrox have certainly discovered just what a difference confidence makes.
Sam Lammers struggled to hit a barn door with a tuba, let alone a banjo, in Rangers blue. He found the target just twice in 31 games, trudging around the park like a man who did not trust himself to put one foot in front of the other without tripping.
Since returning to his native Netherlands with a January loan move to FC Utrecht, however, Lammers has scored 10 times in 18 matches. The swagger has returned, Lammers dropping deep, linking the play like a prime-Berbatov while rediscovering the goalscoring knack that earned him a £9 million move to Atalanta four years earlier.
When the confidence is flowing, Lammers is a ‘beautiful (player) to watch‘.
Rangers need to make a Sam Lammers decision
For ESPN reporter Jan Joost van Gangelen, if Lammers had even a shred of Wout Weghorst’s tenacity and doggedness, he would not be back in the Eredivisie and facing an uncertain future at his parent club.
“Lammers is a bit like the Arnold Bruggink of the current era,” Van Gangelen says, likening the Rangers loanee to a man who won three Eredivisie titles at PSV but never really fulfilled his potential.
“A sweet boy. Nice son-in-law. Can play football well and is super talented. If Lammers had Weghorst’s poison, he would now be playing in the top of Spain.”
Speaking of Weghorst, the former Manchester United loanee appears to be closing in on a dream move to his boyhood club FC Twente.
Former Eredivisie forward Anco Jansen, however, feels that a team who finished third in 2023/24 would be better served testing Rangers’ resolve for Lammers rather than calling upon the veteran targetman still contracted to Burnley.
£3m Ibrox misfit ‘better than’ former Manchester United man
“Lammers is better than Wout Weghorst,” argues Jansen, formerly of PEC Zwolle and Groningen. “If I had to choose between Sam Lammers or Wout Weghorst, I would choose Sam Lammers 100 times.”
By his own admission, Lammers is still none the wiser about whether he will be afforded a second chance at Rangers.
It has been reported that AZ Alkmaar have identified the former Eintracht Frankfurt loanee as a replacement for their 29-goal Golden Boot winner Vangelis Pavlidis, although Lammers’ sizeable weekly wage is one even the clubs near the top of the Dutch rankings would struggle to match.
