Ibrox View: Rangers outing v Lyon proved that Jordan Jones is not a centre-forward
Jordan Jones’ first season at Rangers was hardly a belter.
The ex-Kilmarnock man missed the best part of the campaign because of a ligament injury sustained in an Old Firm clash, and has only returned to action in the relatively recent past.
He was given a chance to prove his worth on Thursday evening, however, when Steven Gerrard gave him a 37 minute cameo in the 2-0 friendly win over Olympique Lyon.
If we’re being completely honest though, the wide man failed to make good on his chance – although that might have something to do with the fact that Gerrard was playing him in a more central role.
Jones was sent on to play as a centre-forward, according to Wyscout, put his heat map would suggest that he was still tempted to drift out wide.
Ultimately, that meant that he didn’t really manage to fulfil either role to the best of his ability, and the stats reflect that.
Jones registered a shot accuracy rate of 0%, as well as completing 0% of his dribbles, and winning just 14% of his contested duels.
As a point of comparison, his season averages in those areas are 38.1%, 47.3%, and 44.3% respectively.
And if you needed any more proof of the fact that Gerrard’s experiment of playing him in a central role didn’t work, you need only look at the chance that he missed with 15 minutes left on the clock.
As you can see from the image above, Jones is in acres of space, and has an uncontested run into the box, provided the delivery from out wide is good enough.
If we play that clip forward we see that the pass is pretty much perfect, presenting the wide man with a fairly easy finish.
His first touch looks as if it has set him up brilliantly, and he has plenty of time and space to compose himself before trying to beat the keeper.
The range is so close and the defender is so far away that it almost looks harder to miss than it does to score.
Instead, what happens is that Jones allows that first touch to just get away from him, and suddenly, from having all the time in the world, he presents the keeper with a chance of cutting him off.
In turn, this forces the forward to stab at his effort, making contact with something akin to a toe-poke.
It’s anything but composed.
Granted, he doesn’t miss by much, but we all know that he should be burying that.
Hopefully Jones still gets a chance to make good on his potential with Rangers this season, but if Thursday’s outing proved anything, it’s that he is no centre-forward.
In other Rangers news, Ibrox View: Rangers could get 20/21 boost after transfer reports on rival striker.