One of the loudest arguments you hear around Rangers just now is that we “don’t create enough”. It’s an easy thing to say when results are wobbling, but it’s also the kind of claim you can at least sanity-check with basic chance data. xG and “big chances” aren’t gospel, and folk are right to be suspicious of them at times. Still, they’re useful as a quick comparator when you’re trying to spot whether a team is genuinely running dry or just not taking what’s there.
xG and big chances: trends, not truth
Going by the figures quoted from FotMob, Rangers’ league output this season sits at an xG of 39.5 with 63 big chances created. Last season, the numbers were much bigger: 75.6 xG and 113 big chances. That’s a massive drop-off on the face of it, and it does point towards a side generating less high-quality stuff overall.
But the important bit in the middle of all that is this: the same post notes we’re at about the same number of shots on target each season. That matters because it nudges the conversation away from “we create nothing” and towards “what kind of chances are we creating, and who is missing them?” If the volume of shots on target isn’t falling off a cliff, then the issue might be about chance quality, decision-making in the final third, or simply the wrong players ending up on the end of things.
Strikers hitting target, others not matching it
The comparison of forwards is interesting mainly because it highlights something Rangers fans have felt with their eyes: the finishing doesn’t always match the flow of a game. Chermiti’s 4 goals from an xG of 3.24 puts him ahead of expectation, while Miovski is slightly behind with 3 from 3.63. Both show the same 50% shots-on-target rate in the figures given.
Then there’s Dessers: 18 goals from 17.45 xG, again basically bang on what you’d expect. And the shot profile quoted (82 shots, 42 on target) is the same 50% on-target rate. So whatever you think of him, that season’s return wasn’t some wild overperformance. It was pretty much the chances being taken at a normal clip.
It wasn’t all “create it yourself”
The other point that’s worth holding onto is the idea that Dessers “made them all on his own”. Maybe he did some of it, but it’s hard to buy that as the full story when you’ve got multiple Rangers players contributing assists. The post mentions Cerny, Raskin, Hagi and Tavernier all in high single figures, and that 80 goals came with 40 assists from six players. That doesn’t happen if you’re living off scraps and wonder-goals every week.
So the truth is probably somewhere more boring than the extremes: Rangers have created chances, but the mix of chance quality and who is finishing them has looked off at times. And that’s the bit that needs fixed, rather than pretending the team never gets into scoring positions at all.
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