One of the issues that Rangers had in the early part of this season and, to a lesser extent, under Michael Beale, is that when things aren’t going well we resort to throwing cross, after cross into the opposition penalty area. A method that relies heavily on quality of delivery which is why Borna Barisic and James Tavernier are so important.
In the summer though, Rangers looked to transition away from this game plan with the signing of Ridvan Yilmaz, an exciting young Turkey international who Ross Wilson wrote a sizeable cheque for.
The early signs, as shown by the clip below, were positive. Barisic has his strengths but they don’t lie in beating players one v one and driving into the box.
Don’t care that this was ‘only’ against QOS, I won’t ever tire of watching that assist and hope to see more of the same this weekend. pic.twitter.com/aQrIxoaYJq
— Kai Watson (@Kaiwatson) March 16, 2023
Comparing the two players throws up little surprises with Ridvan more successful at dribbling, at progressing the ball into the final third and at winning defensive duels, Barisic the more accomplished crosser and plays more forward passes.
Kai Watson, who writes for This is Ibrox, providing the following graphic that shows exactly how the two full-backs compare.
The clip against Queen of the South paints almost the perfect picture of how they compare and, especially against teams that set up with a low block, Ridvan will be particularly useful. Even against Raith Rovers when he came off the bench we saw how the left-hand side went from seeing crosses from Borna – who had put some great deliveries in – to Ridvan getting to the by-line and cutting the ball back.
Having competition is healthy and, after months on the sidelines, we could get to see Ridvan starting against Motherwell as Borna assists with an entirely different type of delivery at home, let the competition for the starting jersey commence.