This week, Alan Hutton offered advice to Robby McCrorie after the goalkeeper admitted that he expects his loan at Livingston to be extended to accommodate the potential extension of this season. Hutton admits that McCrorie finds himself in a difficult situation and must continue to stay focused amidst the uncertainty.
Speaking to Football Insider about the decision, the former Ger said: “He’s obviously there to learn and experience playing at a level and obviously for him to be doing well, for it to stop short the way it has, it’s difficult.
“You go from playing week in, week out to back to where you were where you’re just training, it’s not the same. Everybody’s in the same situation, they’re all in the same boat in that you can’t play matches.
“They’re just going to have to keep training hard and hopefully it comes back sooner rather than later.”
In his eight Scottish Premiership games this season, the 22-year-old Scottish shot-stopper has conceded nine goals. In a total of 32 games across all competitions, he has conceded 42 goals.
In comparison, Rangers’ Allan McGregor has conceded just 35 goals in 47 games. In 26 league games, he has conceded just 18 times.
If we look at these statistics on their own, the veteran ‘keeper appears to be the obvious number-one contender as Rangers’ first-choice shot-stopper. But how close is McCrorie from making a return to Ibrox to challenge McGregor for the number one spot?
TIF Tactics – How close is McCrorie to McGregor?
Let’s take a look at both players’ statistics during the 2019/20 season.
As the above statistics suggest, McCrorie lets in more goals than McGregor per 90 minutes on average. He averages 0.99 goals against per 90 minutes, while McGregor averages just 0.68 goals against per match.
Will Robby McCrorie start for Rangers within three seasons?
Yes
No
However, we can’t let the comparison end there. Let’s take a look at their xCG (expected conceded goals). McCrorie averages 1.11 xCG per match compared to McGregor’s 0.89 xCG.
This means that, in theory, McCrorie denies opponents 0.12 expected goals per match and McGregor denies opponents 0.21 expected goals per match.
It appears as though McGregor is still the obvious first choice for now. However, there are signs of promise for McCrorie.
In his entire career, he averages 1.1 goals against per 90 minutes with an xCG of 1.17. This means that in his entire career, he has only denied opponents 0.06 goals per match on average.
If this is true, McCrorie has doubled his effectiveness at denying opponents goals during matches this season.
While he might not be ready to dismantle McGregor from his throne right now, all signs suggest that the youngster is developing well during his loan spells.
(all data and stats from Wyscout.com, accurate at the time of writing)