Bojan Miovski: Rangers star has night to forget as Turkey beat North Macedonia
Bojan Miovski was dragged off at half-time in North Macedonia’s game against Turkey on Monday, as the Rangers star couldn’t make his mark on the game.
With North Macedonia failing to qualify for this summer’s World Cup, they’ve been in Friendly action over the last few days.
They drew 0-0 away at Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday 29 May, in which Miovski played 58 minutes before being replaced, before travelling to Turkey on Monday evening.
It was their final friendly game before their UEFA Nations League campaign gets going in late September, so manager Goce Sedloski’s side were hoping to go into their summer break with something to build on.
As for Miovski, it was another opportunity to put himself in Danny Rohl‘s thinking ahead of Rangers’ pre-season campaign, but the 26-year-old won’t have done himself much good in that regard with his performance against Turkey.
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How did Bojan Miovski fare for North Macedonia vs Turkey?
Miovski’s long-term Rangers future is uncertain, having played second fiddle to Youssef Chermiti for the majority of last season.
With Lawrence Shankland now through the door, he only appears to have been pushed further down the Ibrox pecking order before the summer transfer window has even truly got started.
| Miovski’s 25-26 league stats | Result |
| Minutes played | 1,304 |
| Goals per 90 | 0.48 |
| Shots per 90 | 2.35 |
| Pass accuracy | 78.3% |
| Average match rating | 6.65 |
One way to claw back through the competition is to impress on the international stage at any given opportunity, and his latest in that respect came on Monday night in Istanbul.
His North Macedonia side took on World Cup-bound Turkey, in what was always going to be a tough game for the away side.
However, they ran out 4-0 losers, with Miovski starting the game but would be replaced at half-time as part of six North Macedonian changes.
As per FotMob, he failed to register a single shot on goal, whilst also failing to complete his lone dribble attempt successfully.
Miovski also won none of his two ground duels, was dispossessed once, took only 13 touches in the game and made zero tackles.
He did, however, complete 91 per cent of his pass attempts successfully, whilst also creating one big chance for a teammate which wasn’t put away.
Why Miovski still has big Rangers role to play
The aforementioned arrival of Shankland looks to have landed a significant blow to Miovski’s Rangers prospects, but what if it hasn’t changed anything?
It seems highly unlikely that Rohl will continue to play with just one striker and leave either one of Chermiti or Shankland on the bench, with the latter having routinely starred in a front two with Hearts.
As such, that would leave Miovski as potentially the number three centre-forward as opposed to the number two role he played last season, but in reality, he’s still the priority backup if it’s indeed to be a front two at Ibrox next term.
So in that respect, Miovski’s role in the Gers side won’t be impacted at all by Shankland’s arrival, as he is likely to start next season being what he was previously, and that was still good enough to see him play 42 times and score 13 goals in all competitions.
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