Tom Lawrence injury blow for Rangers really isn’t a problem at all | OneFootball

It’s not often a Rangers injury really doesn’t make much difference to the team’s fortunes, but Tom Lawrence being out for 6 weeks is the epitome of a player whose impact, outside ‘unexpected’ and opportunistic goals (much like Abdallah Sima), is minimal and who doesn’t add much to matches otherwise.

It’s surreal to be critical of a player who has 7 goals and assists in 15 when we’re lavishing praise on Vaclav Cerny who has 10 in 16, but while Cerny has repeatedly shown his class despite that dip some weeks ago, Lawrence keeps on doing very little outwith scoring goals.

Now, the big ‘miss’ here is Lawrence has scored a couple in the Europa League, v Lyon and FCSB, but neither impacted the result at all so we’re not sure how impactful losing a playmaker who doesn’t playmake much actually is.

Nedim Bajrami has started to come really come onto a game lately, with 5 in 14, and is naturally a 10 so it’s a completely organic switch to put him into his favoured 10 slot.

Unfortunately Rangers’ wing situation remains dire, just McCausland and Cerny available so one of them would have to be on the left, despite both being RW.

But that’s the drawback of losing Lawrence – it’s not the loss of his qualities per se, it’s losing the adaptability of those around him and losing Bajrami as a LW.

Some media, including Clement, claim Lawrence has had a great season:

We can’t agree, we think he’s a very underwhelming playmaker, who rarely puts his foot on the ball and is always flirting on the edge of matches.

Compare him with the dominating Todd Cantwell, or further back Joe Aribo, and it’s pretty clear Lawrence is nothing to write home about.

For the most important stat in a playmaker, key passes (any pass which creates a goalscoring chance) he’s way way down the list in 54th with 7 all season in the league. Bajrami is already higher with 8. Incidentally, number one is Matthew Kennedy of Killie with 28 and Tav is Rangers’ highest with 26.

But it’s a moot point – Lawrence is out till close to the Christmas period and Rangers will have to adjust for that.

It’s also clear from Clement’s comments that he sees Lawrence as a vital part of his machine which is pretty rich from a manager who swore by the hopeless Fabio Silva till death do us part.

His judgement in players is most definitely debatable.

But Lawrence has been taken out of his hands for a while now…