Is Rangers midfielder Stephen Kelly ready to make his mark at Ibrox? – scout report

Scotlands Under-21 rounded off a disappointing European Under-21 Championships qualifying campaign with a 1-1 draw in Denmark last week.

In a match mostly dominated by the Danes, Scotland’s one piece of real quality was produced by Rangers’ Stephen Kelly who scored a sensational free-kick.

It was a moment to savour for Kelly at the start of what is likely to be a summer of uncertainty for the 22-year-old Rangers academy graduate.

About the final year of his contract, the central midfielder made a handful of appearances under Steven Gerrard but has found opportunities at Ibrox limited, spending the 2020/21 season on loan with Ross County and the second half of last season with Salford City in EFL League Two.

This tactical analysis scout report will be an analysis of Kelly’s playing style, looking at how he has performed in those loan spells and assessing his chances of securing a place in Giovanni Van Bronckhorst’s tactics next season.

Player profile

Kelly is a right-footed central midfielder, most often deployed in a box-to-box role or deeper as a ‘6’, as we can see in his heatmap for last season at Salford City. Here, he was used either in the double pivot of their 4-2-3-1 or as a CM in their 4-4-2.

At 176cm and 68kg, Kelly is not the most imposing of central midfielders. However, he is adept at using his technical abilities to negate his slight frame, as we will see later in this analysis.

Looking at his pizza chart from his loan spell with Salford City and Ross County, which uses Wyscout data converted into percentile ranks to compare him with other central midfielders (min 1,000 minutes played) in those leagues at the time, we can start to build a clearer picture of the type of player Kelly is.