Kemar Roofe’s Rangers career was an Ibrox tragedy | OneFootball

The exit of Kemar Roofe was known two seasons ago, Rangers manager Philippe Clement offering him a glimmer of hope a couple of months ago by suggesting big performances in the final few weeks could earn a new deal for the likes of himself.

Leon Balogun was, in the end, the only out-of-contractor to earn a new deal, and that was a decision Ibrox Noise totally endorses.

As for Roofe himself, his Rangers career really was a complete ‘what might have been’ because there was no denying when fit, he was among the most talented and clinical goalscorers Rangers have had for many, many years, with an excellent sense of timing and movement and a good burst of pace.

What he couldn’t do was ever be an 11, a pure centre-forward. Giovanni van Bronckhorst desperately tried that at Parkhead in 2022 when Alfredo Morelos’ wasn’t available, and it crashed badly. Roofe didn’t have the physique for being a target man.

But when it came to a support act, being a ‘Ronaldo Messi’ type of modern forward who scores, creates and offers support, Roofe was an exceptional talent.

We say ‘was’ because he had a desperately painful form drop the past two seasons, and that drop off was tangible.

Indeed, in the past 24 months, since summer 22, his stats are abysmal.

The season gone, 700 minutes, 3 goals and assists in 24. The prior one, 2 goals in 6. That’s 30 appearances, 5 goals and assists.

We have to go back to 21/22 for the last time he had form, 18 goals and assists in 36 matches, but it crashed that summer.

After that, Roofe’s time at Rangers was already looking desperately numbered.

For all the notions many fans have about his talent and being clinical, Roofe has been a desperately poor player for over two years now, and of course, we’ve not even got onto the injuries.

Goodness, those injuries. They absolutely ravaged his Rangers career, limiting him to 102 appearances in four years, which really isn’t a good return at all.

And while he was fantastic in terms of performances the first two seasons (22 in 36 and 18 in 36) it absolutely crumbled in 2022, and since then he’s been a busted flush.

Kemar Roofe is a player whose Rangers career promised the moon, over those first 24 months, but the second 24 were atrocious – not just the injuries, but the form loss, and there was absolutely no way he was being offered a new deal.

He hoped for one, he said he was happy here, but in the end the injuries and form drop off were not worth a new deal and Rangers waved goodbye to him.

He will be remembered for three things at Rangers:

‘That’ goal in Belgium, the goal that took Rangers to the last 16 v Benfica last season, and sadly, the injuries.

We wish him well, and ponder what it could have been.