Jota, Kyogo and Hatate snubbed as prize guy Tav lifts yet another prestigious award
Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v Rangers - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - May 1, 2022 Celtic's Jota in action with Rangers' James Tavernier Action Images via Reuters/Carl Recine
Football Scotland has invented another phony award for James Tavernier.
With two trophy wins out of 20 since he arrived in Scotland the former Wigan star has plenty of space on his sideboard for utterly meaningless honours during the greatest period of domination that any club has known.
Celtic have scoped up 14 domestic trophies since the arrival of Tavpen with Callum McGregor heavily involved in every trophy lift.
Undeterred by reality, Football Scotland, the digital wing of the fast fading Daily Record have trawled the internet to find some good news about the skipper whose side conceded 22 goals in six Champions League matches.
Football Scotland reveals:
James Tavernier has been ranked as the Scottish Premiership’s ‘most valuable player’, according to stats.
Leading statistic company StatsBomb have used ‘on-ball value’ data to compile the league’s top 20 and it’s the Rangers captain that comes out on top despite their ropey form. Fans are unhappy with recent performances and results, the latest a 1-1 draw with St Mirren that has left them nine points behind league leaders Celtic.
The 31-year-old personally has perhaps not hit the heights of previous seasons either, although eight goals and five assists from right back is still pretty strong even if many of them have been penalties. ‘OBV’ is a possession value model which measures the value of each event on the pitch.
A value is assigned to each action that takes place on the pitch based on the positive or negative impact it has on the team.
Using that process, Tavernier scores 0.59 while Celtic winger Jota is in second with 0.55. Another Ibrox star in Ryan Kent is next with 0.51.
Joe Hart, Josip Juranovic, Kyogo Furuhashi, Carl Starfelt and Cameron Carter-Vickers have matched Tav’s medal total in just over a year as Celtic players.
As they check into their Sydney hotel it is unlikely that Ange Postecoglou’s squad will be too distressed at missing out on a Pure Really Good award conjured up by a branch of the Daily Record.
Just like Brian Laudrup James isn’t even the best footballer in the Tavernier household.