There are always questions as to why Rangers host the player of the year awards before the season has ended but this year’s has passed largely without controversy.
At the end of the campaign, Philippe Clement will be losing players to international duty and the rest will want to make the most of whatever short period of time off they have, who can blame them for wanting to get this out the way?
Here is your review of the Rangers Player of the Year awards for the men’s senior squad, who won what and what they said.
Rangers Player of the Year winners and losers
There might not have been any controversy, but Connor Goldson picking up the John Greig CBE Achievement award did raise a few eyebrows.
There’s nothing complicated about Goldson’s recognition, he is the fastest player to reach 300 appearances for the club.
Form can be questioned but his resilience and availability can’t.
Goal of the season
There were a few contenders for goal of the season.
James Tavernier has had his usually impressive collection and Cyriel Dessers‘ individual effort against Real Betis was hard to beat too.
For what it could mean, as well as the quality of the strike, Rabbi Matondo picked up the trophy for his dramatic, injury time leveller against Celtic at Ibrox.
In case you need a reminder, it wasn’t a bad hit…
Young Player of the Year
Young player of the year was almost a one-horse race purely to the lack of young players who played for the senior team this season.
Ridvan Yilmaz has been outstanding, when he has been fit but is just too old, as is Abdallah Sima.
Ross McCausland broke into the first-team squad and hasn’t looked back.
What he has to do next is add more of an end product to his work rate and attitude and he’ll do just fine.
Top goalscorer
The top goalscorer award is the one that shouldn’t really be handed out at this stage of the year.
We only need to look at last year when Antonio Colak caught James Tavernier on the last day of the season.
Hopefully, the big Croatian was given something for his efforts.
It might take Cyriel Dessers a bit more effort to catch the captain, who is currently on 24, in the remaining games, however, with three goals in two games, I wouldn’t write him off.
Tavernier isn’t done yet either and has his sights set on closing the gap on the defenders leading the way on the world’s best list after becoming the highest scoring British defender of all time:
“This is the most I have scored in a season. My benchmark goal against Hibs, being the all-time British record [scorer] for a defender, it’s a crazy moment.
“I’m looking on that world list now and I’m obviously trying to go for second place.
“Obviously, I enjoy scoring goals. It comes down to my team-mates, winning penalties for us, with the deliveries.
“It’s always nice to contribute to the team and score that many goals. I always want to improve, I always want to better myself and try to beat my own targets.
“It’s a big target to do, next season, but I will always try my best. There’s time for more this season, but as long as we are winning games, that’s the main thing.”
Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year
Last but not least, the player of the year and players’ player of the year.
It could only be Jack Butland.
Against St Mirren, he had three saves to make and made them all, including one that ranks just as high as Allan McGregors against Slavia Prague or Andy Goram’s against Celtic.
The importance of the match or quality of opposition might not quite be as high, but this shouldn’t detract from just how good a save it was.
Nobody has been more consistent and nobody has been consistently as good as the England international who isn’t done yet:
“I know we got the opportunity to win a trophy in December but this is the business end of the season now where your hard work, your ability sort of takes over and you have to get the job done.
“We feel we are in a great place, despite the disappointment of a couple of weeks ago.
“We still have it all in our hands and that is what you want at this stage of the season. Looking forward to the challenge, as all the boys are, and hopefully we can get it done.”
With Jack Butland in goals, anything is possible.
