Rolle needs to sign Vin Celmiti as Rangers star player who was SPFL’s ‘Man of the Year’

After eight games with the Rangers, is Danny Rolle getting closer to figuring out which players he can trust and who he can’t?

On Thursday night, Gers were held to a 1-1 draw with 10-man Braga at Ibrox despite taking the lead through James Tavernier’s spot-kick in first-half stoppage time. The fact that there were only 38,014 people in attendance reflects the atmosphere.

So unless they somehow manage to beat Ferencváros, Ludogorets Razgrad and Porto, with just one point after five games, which frankly seems unlikely, Gers’ Europa League adventure, which reached the quarter-finals last season, will come to an early end in January.

This will allow them to focus on domestic issues, which could be a good thing given that they have fallen to fifth in the Premiership standings despite winning all four league games since Rolle arrived in Glasgow.

So what changes will the Germany head coach need to make ahead of the visit to Falkirk, where they will indeed leapfrog the hosts with Sunday’s shock win at Ibrox?

Yusef Chelmiti’s mediocre form

Back on Monday, it was announced that both chief executive Patrick Stewart and sporting director Kevin Thelwell had been sacked after overseeing a tumultuous summer recruitment campaign. Among the more egregious and incomprehensible decisions, the amount paid to sign Youssef Cermiti was £8m, and could even have risen to £10m.

His only goal for the club so far, a shot on target against Kilmarnock last month, has already surpassed his scoreless record in two seasons at Everton, when Thelwell brought him to Merseyside for £14 million while at Goodison.

Aside from his lack of goals, the striker simply hasn’t performed well enough, often being left out of games or putting in some anonymous performances.

After this week’s draw with Braga, Scotland boss Mark Atkinson claimed they were driving supporters into “dementia”, adding that they had missed “some respectable” chances and had so far proved to be just an inexplicably expensive buy.

So ahead of three Premiership games against Falkirk, Dundee United and Kilmarnock in seven days, Chelmity will have to be dropped and Rolle replaced up front with “the best player in the league”.

Excellent Celmiti replacement for Rangers

Of the 13 players the Rangers signed over the summer, many are young and inexperienced and will hopefully grow and improve over the next few years, but Bojan Miovski was supposed to be an immediate starter.

The 26-year-old, who returned to Scottish football after a season with Girona, is a proven goalscorer at both club and international level, scoring his ninth goal for North Macedonia against Wales at Cardiff City Stadium earlier this month.

Meanwhile, at club level, he was outstanding in his two years at Aberdeen, as shown in the table below, before the season in Catalonia.

As is clear from the table, Miovski is an elite-level finisher, having scored 32 goals in the Premiership during his time at Pittodrie, and his strike rate in Europe and attacks against Glasgow’s two powerhouses highlight his quality.

His teammate at the time, Nicky Devlin, claimed Miovski was “the best player in the league in his position” and led the Dons to a third-place finish in 2022/23, before being sold for a Dons record transfer fee of £6.8 million.

However, we have yet to see much of Miovski in a Rangers shirt, scoring his first goal for the club against Hibs in the League Cup, while his only goal in the Premiership came at Falkirk Stadium in October, the day Russell Martin was sacked.

The North Macedonian has appeared in all eight games since Rohr’s appointment, but only started once, at Dens Park before the international break, when he was substituted at half-time with the Light Blues leading Dundee 2-0.

So, for some reason, the German manager seems to be favoring Cermiti and Danilo. Despite the fact that Miovski is a proven scorer at both Premiership and European level, this team desperately needs it. After 26 games this season, Tavernier and Jaydee Gassama are the only members of the team to have scored four or more goals.

So certainly when Falkirk visit Ibrox this weekend, Rolle will have to ditch the helpless Chelmity and bring Miovski back into the eleven, with the former likely looking to score again against the Bairns, as he did at Stirlingshire just last month.