Sam Lammers has top Rangers striker traits but mentor puzzled over ‘selfish’ demand amid van Nistelrooy comparison

He was being compared with a Dutch great – but Sam Lammers’ mentor admits he isn’t sure whether the advice to fulfil such hype has been taken on board by the Rangers forward

The Dutchman was brought to Ibrox by Michael Beale in the summer, as he looked to reboot his career. After showing early promise in the PSV academy in his native Netherlands, the 26-year-old has struggled for regular goals outside a loan spell at Heerenveen in the 2018/19 term. He cost a reported £3.5m from Serie A side Atalanta but has so far scored once with one assist in 19 games.

Kevin Hofland, an ex-Dutch international who coached Lammers’ youth side at PSV, insists Lammers is best played as an out-and-out striker. But as comparisons to Man United hero Ruud van Nistelrooy arrived from the press, advice was put to the current Rangers man, and Hofland wonders if that has been embedded into his game.

He told the Scottish Sun: “I worked with Sam all three seasons he was with PSV. He scored a lot of goals \u0097 he could score easily, with both feet and his head.

“In terms of technical ability I never saw anyone like him. There was no one at PSV who had any doubts that he would have a professional career. In the Netherlands, newspapers compared him to Ruud van Nistelrooy. But at the club we didn’t put him under that pressure.

“Working with him every day, I saw what kind of boy Sam was and probably still is. As a person, he was shy. Maybe a little too shy but that was just his nature.

“On and off the field he was a very good character. But I always encouraged him to try to be more aggressive. We stressed to him that really top strikers had to be selfish.

“I hoped as he grew more experienced and understood what was needed to be a top striker, he would develop in that way. But I don’t know if he has. I didn’t read too much about him in the last few years when he was playing in Italy.

“Then when I saw he’d moved to Scotland I hoped he had learned to be more physical, as the game in the UK is tougher than it is in Holland. He was never someone who needed a cuddle from coaches or to be given any kind of mental reassurance.

“He was smart enough to know what he needed to do to succeed. But it came back to the nature of his personality. He’s an out-and-out striker. That’s his position. He can play as a No 10 but he’s a goalscorer.”