Post-mortem – Rangers in crisis

Tonight’s Europa League humiliation has to go down as
Rangers’ worst-ever result in Europe. Pedro Caixinha’s men were up against
statistically speaking the tenth-worst team in any Uefa competition, with the
tenth-worst co-efficient in the Europa League.

In 12 previous matches in European competition Progres
Niederkorn had only ever scored a solitary goal. One. They had never won a
single match at this level. In European terms they were the continental
equivalent of Brechin City (no offence chaps).

And yet in one night they not only won their first-ever
European match, but scored twice at this level inside 90 minutes for the first
time for good measure too.

When one examines those facts, one has to conclude that this
might not just be the worst European result in Rangers’ history, but close to
their worst ever, period.

It was pretty evident on watching the first leg that Rangers
were in trouble. They were up against a side who could barely string three
passes together, yet were unable to put a single shot on target against them
until Miller’s decent opener. It was from that goal onwards though that this
tie went dreadfully downhill, and as Niko Kranjcar faded at Ibrox, the tie
started to eke out of Rangers’ reach.

Ibrox Noise is not going to go as far as say we knew we
would lose this tie – no one could have predicted that. But we were castigating of the performance in the first leg and it worried us deeply. It was evident
that the players were not clicking, were not working, and simply appeared
unable to play much in the way of effective football.

But for Kranjcar’s range passing, Rangers would have been
without any creativity at all before the goal, and that was a threat Progres
took note of smartly and suffocated him in the return.

But here we are, another disastrous 90 minutes under Pedro
Caixinha and trying to sum up where Rangers are is something of a poisoned
chalice.

But we shall give it a shot:

The board appointed the wrong man. We said it already several times, got hounded for saying it, got told to give him time, and we
decided we had said our piece and que sera sera. Pedro Caixinha was a comical,
weird, shocking and abysmal choice for Rangers manager – there appears
absolutely no obvious reason for why such a completely inappropriate choice was
made. We had a go at contriving one, with his Hispanic contacts meaning he could plunder the Latin market for players, but it was nothing we could prove.
So yeah, Pedro Caixinha is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But that is not his fault – the board appointed him and they
must take responsibility for this utterly curious appointment. Whoever
ultimately is accountable for choosing Pedro must resign. He has managed to
transcend every manager since Walter as being Rangers’ worst-ever but he did
not choose himself.  He is out of his
depth, unable to man-manage, has not a clue about Scottish football, and almost all his behaviours since being appointed have been at odds with what we know works at Ibrox.

And the men behind this choice are 100% at fault.

As for the players, well, where on earth do we start. Of
what we witnessed in the debacle over the past week, only Cardoso and Jack
appear decent signings. And by decent I mean ‘Hearts level’ decent. Carlos
Cuellar and Barry Ferguson they are not. These guys are not traditional Rangers
level, nowhere near, but both appear honest pros and certainly hold their heads
higher than others.

Others like Alfredo Morelos. Oh boy. His pathetic cameo last
week was a dreadful sign. As we called it, he looked lethargic, disinterested and immobile. Well tonight he was even worse. Inside 15 seconds a perfectly
fair physical challenge had him decked, as if he could not cope with the sheer
physicality of his opponent. He remained static for the rest of the first half
and offered less than Franny Jeffers. We looked at his CV and thought we had an
absolute belter of a striker. All I can say is the Finnish Premier League must
be utterly dreadful if a player of that quality can bag so many goals.

Others like Daniel Candieas. A Benfica player who could not
get a game for his club, who is essentially the Portuguese Michael O’Halloran.
He is not diabolical but he does not fit into the team. Although in saying
that, does anyone? He does not attack and he looked lost. He worryingly
reminded me of Anestis Argyriou.

Others like Dalcio. Somehow this shambles of a winger
managed to be even worse than the man he replaced in Morelos. He was feeble in
the first leg, and hopeless in the second.

The quality of player in Rangers’ squad continues to bumble
along. As one cycle of rot ends, another starts. We clear out Ally’s rubbish,
Mark’s replaces it. We clear out his, now Pedro’s is the remains of the day.

Funny thing is on paper it was a half decent team – Rossiter
finally starting, and a decent bank of three. Problem is football is not played
on paper. It is played on grass. And once again Rangers’ ponderous, pedestrian,
pathetic play took hold – we worried how these players would break out of the
Bread Man’s programming, well, it seems Ped has the same obsession with playing
this way.

And a word for Kranjcar. Gone was every ounce of ingenuity
the Croat had at Ibrox. He produced nothing. Progres’ tactics may have played a
part but Niko looked completely lost and his craft was absent.

So there you have it. The board appoint the wrong man, the
wrong man cannot manage properly or sign quality, and the players are mid-table
SPL level at best.

There can be no overreaction to this result. It was as bad
as it is possible to be. Rangers right now are looking at being a bottom 6 team
in the SPL. You may laugh at this, after all, how is that possible; well, how
was losing to Progres possible? They are probably inferior to the whole SPL – they
are around upper Scottish Championship level. Yet they deservedly won.

Rangers have opened themselves a whole world of trouble and
your guess is as good as mine as to how this can be fixed.