Former Rangers star stuns again in the Champions League | OneFootball

After his latest double for PSV in the Champions League, this time v Ukrainian giants Shakhtar, the usual Rangers fans are mocking Malik Tillman’s detractors, the ones who ‘didn’t think he was good enough’ for Rangers.

So the lad now has a market value of £25M, and he has 12 goals and assists in 19 this season for the Dutch side.

There is, of course, a catch.

Malik Tillman is now playing in the Eredivisie where even Sam Lammers has shone, even Robin Propper looked good – this is a much more open fluid league which rewards technical quality far more than the Scottish Premiership does, and if Lammers can look like Ronaldo and Propper seems like Paolo, it gives a major clue about the structural differences between both leagues.

Champions League?

Ibrox Noise already credited Tillman big time with getting Rangers to that level in 2022, his assist for Antonio Colak was outstanding and the Croat’s finish took us to the group stage, of course against the very side Tillman now plays for.

But it simply wouldn’t ever have worked for Tillman at Ibrox.

1: He was too young for the pressure – this is now two years later and he’s grown up in a less pressure football world that is PSV and the Eredivisie. The pressure at Rangers killed him.

2: He absolutely sank in the big league matches, the ones that counted – we needed his quality against Celtic but he didn’t show it at that level.

3: He didn’t want to stay. Simple as that. He wasn’t interested in Rangers or Scotland – back then he wanted Bayern, but wasn’t good enough for them either at that point, so they sold him to PSV, to a lesser level, and now he’s shining.

He wasn’t indeed Rangers level back then, and probably never would be – the guy doesn’t/didn’t suit Scottish football, and now he’s doing well elsewhere. He may well achieve his dream of playing for Bayern, but the SPL and Rangers has crushed better players than Tillman.

Still won’t stop some Rangers fans point scoring…