By Alistair Aird
Rangers added another centurion to the list of their great goalscorers a couple of weeks ago when Alfredo Morelos netted his 100th goal for the club. But the man who created that goal – James Tavernier – is also on the verge of hitting a century too.
When he passed to Glenn Kamara 15 minutes from the end of the 6-1 thrashing of Motherwell, our captain created a goal for the 99th time in his Rangers career. That’s a staggering stat. Considering Tavernier was making his 306th appearance in the match at Fir Park, it works out at an assist every 3.09 appearances. He’s a full-back! When you add to that his splendid volley that got us back on level terms was his 68th goal for the club, you can see how important he is to Steven Gerrard’s team.
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Although keeping record of assists is a fairly recent thing, it’s safe to assume that Tavernier is up there at the top end in terms of full backs creating goals in a Rangers jersey.
ASSISTS – WHERE DOES TAVERNIER RANK?
Since James came to Rangers in the summer of 2015, he has topped the assist rankings at the club in four of the six completed seasons.
Season 2015/16
Rank
Player
Assists
1
James Tavernier
23
2=
Lee Wallace
13
2=
Barrie McKay
13
Season 2016/17
Rank
Player
Assists
1
Barrie McKay
11
2
Martyn Waghorn
9
3=
Kenny Miller
8
3=
Lee Wallace
8
Tavernier ranked fifth in this campaign, registering seven assists in 44 appearances.
Season 2017/18
Rank
Player
Assists
1
Daniel Candeias
13
2
Jamie Murphy
10
3
James Tavernier
9
Season 2018/19
Rank
Player
Assists
1
James Tavernier
20
2=
Daniel Candeias
12
2=
Alfredo Morelos
12
Season 2019/20
Rank
Player
Assists
1
James Tavernier
15
2
Borna Barisic
14
3
Alfredo Morelos
10
Season 2020/21
Rank
Player
Assists
1
James Tavernier
16
2=
Ryan Kent
15
2=
Ianis Hagi
15
Tavernier is out in front this season too, his nine assists at the time of writing five better than Ryan Kent. It has to be said, though, that Kent has missed a number of matches recently through injury.
ASSISTS BY SEASON
After a goal against Hibernian at Easter Road on his debut, Tavernier claimed his first assist on his competitive debut at Ibrox, a 3-0 League Cup win over Peterhead 2 August 2015. He consistently hits double figures, and given he has nine assists already this season, he is on course to hit in and around the 20-mark again. His 20 assists in season 2018/19 were spread across 57 appearances in all competitions, that’s an assist in every 2.85 appearances.
ASSISTS BY COMPETITION
Given that 58.2% of Tavernier’s appearances have come in the Scottish Premiership then as one would suspect the majority of his assists (55.6%) have come in this competition. Interestingly, of those 55 assists, only one has come after the league splits with five games to go. That was on the final day of last season when Tavernier is credited with assisting the own goal scored by the Aberdeen goalkeeper, Joe Lewis.
In terms of his 14 assists in the Europa League, eight (57.1%) have come in the qualifying rounds.
ASSISTS – WHICH OPPONENTS HAS TAVERNIER CREATED GOALS AGAINST?
Since joining Rangers, James has been credited with assists against 34 different opposition teams:
In terms of who has benefited from Tavernier assists from a Rangers point of view, 22 of Alfredo Morelos’s 101 Rangers goals (21.8%) were created by James. And of the 17 goals Connor Goldson has scored for Rangers, eight (47.1%) have come from deliveries by Tavernier.
Let’s turn our attention now to the goals that Tavernier has scored in a Rangers jersey.
GOALS BY COMPETITION
James Tavernier has found the net 68 times in his Rangers career. He has scored in eight competitions, and this is broken down as follows:
Of the 68 goals, 24 (35.3%) fall into the category of ‘game winning.’
The eight goals James has scored in the European competition also betters totals in that arena by the likes of Mark Hateley (6) and Derek Johnstone (7).
TYPE OF GOALS
An excellent asset when it comes to the delivery of a dead ball, it is not a surprise that the majority of Tavernier’s goals (60.3%) come from this source:
With reference to penalty kicks, James has missed from the spot seven times in his Rangers career. That gives him a success rate of 81.6%. This doesn’t include the penalties that Tavernier missed in penalty shoot outs against Celtic and St Johnstone in the Scottish Cup.
SUMMARY
It’s hard to believe given the numbers above that there are still some dissenting voices among the Rangers support when it comes to Tavernier. His importance cannot be underestimated, and we are perhaps overly reliant on our captain creating goals, particularly if the likes of Ryan Kent are out the team.
The critics will point to his defending, but this has improved in recent seasons. And although young Nathan Patterson has the potential to be a first-class full-back, he isn’t yet at the level where he can consistently match Tavernier’s data. It’s true that he needs more game time to achieve this, and accommodating the needs of Patterson and Tavernier is a nice problem for Steven Gerrard to have.
After leaving him out of the XI against Hibernian, Steven was effusive in his praise of Tavernier. He called him ‘a machine’ and said he was capable of playing 50-60 games a season. The numbers that back up that are impressive too. Since joining the club, Tavernier has missed out on a place in the matchday squad on just 24 occasions, and he has been in the starting XI for 301 of the 306 appearances he has made.
The appearances as substitute have come in the League (3), League Cup (1) and Europa League (1).
At the same press conference, Gerrard also pointed out that he wanted to manage Tavernier’s game time, and that most likely means James won’t play every game this season. If that proves to be the case then one thing is certain, whoever comes in to replace him will be hard pushed to match or better the contribution James Tavernier makes to the goals scored by Rangers.
