Why The Rise Of Wes Foderingham, James Tavernier And Josh Windass Has Been Crucial For Rangers
Rangers, some would argue, have done incredibly well to stick to Aberdeen’s level of form and be 11 points behind Celtic after 26 games this season given the turmoil at the club.
Having undergone surgery in the summer, losing players like Joe Garner and Martyn Waghorn who have performed admirably in the English Championship this season, Rangers effectively had to start again with new boys Alves, Cardoso, Jack, Dorrans, Candeias, Morelos, Herrera, Pena and others.
After some indifferent performances and a strong disagreement of policy behind the scenes, manager Pedro Caixinha was sacked, which meant more changes.
Following a long period of indecision from the Rangers board, which again did not help matters on the field, the club eventually decided to put Graeme Murty in charge at least until the end of the season and with that came another change in policy.
Murty brought back Joe Dodoo, Andy Halliday and Michael O’Halloran, and also signed Jason Cummings, Russell Martin, Sean Goss, Jamie Murphy and Greg Docherty, meaning this squad has now gone through around three massive changes in a year.
With all that turmoil, how does a team still perform to a reasonable level and stay broadly on course to close the gap at the top of their league?
Enter Foderingham, Tavernier and Windass.
In Foderingham’s case, he is still not the strongest ‘keeper we have seen at Ibrox and nor is he likely to be long-term. However, some of his last-ditch saves have kept Rangers in games as the season has gone on and that directly leads to points for his team.
Tavernier actually endured a shaky start, with some questioning his positional sense given that he and the left-back were bombing forward in the early games, leaving Jack and/or Dorrans to fill in from midfield with the team looking all out of shape.
Since then though, he has truly found his feet at this level and has even re-discovered his scoring boots too, making a vital contribution to the cause at both ends of the field.
Windass though, is the true revelation. By the end of last season, most people thought he was going to be a lost cause at Ibrox and it made the comments of his father Dean Windass look stupid, where he said that Rangers should be building a team around his son.
What we commented on these pages was that Windass needed to add a finishing touch to his play and this term, he has done just that, with his 12 goals and 8 assists looking absolutely vital.
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