Rangers midfielder makes big claim about training

Jason Holt has admitted something which may have sincerely paid off against St Johnstone.

While captain Bruno Alves had a stellar night in defence, producing the kind of display we have all waited for from him, he was only one man, and Rangers’ returning midfielder has confirmed that one thing manager Pedro Caixinha worked on in training, which we mostly knew about, seems to have reaped rewards, especially if St Johnstone’s five-corner in succession sequence is anything to go by.

“We just needed to tighten up at the back.”

The engine room man said, loosely admitting how weak Rangers have been defensively this season, despite the recent run of promising results.

He went on:

“We have done a lot of work on that in the last couple of weeks and I think it showed. We had a spell when they put us under a lot of pressure with a few corners, but I thought we did extremely well to defend our goal. It was definitely and area we wanted to improve on and I think we did that.”

And it did. While we did not feel 100% confident that no goal was coming as a result of the pressure Tommy Wright’s men forced on Wes Foderingham’s box, the lack of real chances on the night and the need for only one significant save on Wes’ part impresses that the work done during the international break reap rewards.

Despite Fabio Cardoso’s individual vulnerability, and fullbacks James Tavernier and Declan John not convincing terribly well at the back, nevertheless as a unit the XI worked well and stopped any danger.

Yours truly is slightly amused though at the number of fans who, instead of giving the team credit for a good win and suffocating Wright’s men, have decided to claim St Johnstone were poor instead in order to undermine Rangers’ triumph. It seems some Rangers fans cannot give the team or manager credit for anything.

Clearly whatever was done in training worked in this match. It was a clinical and well-executed attacking, midfield and defensive display in a fixture against a serious opponent.

Hopefully it continues against Motherwell.