The stats Rangers fans SHOULD be worried about
It’s been a long-running theme for Rangers, ever since promotion to the SPL. The increasingly awful record at Ibrox.
Rangers’ final season in the Championship under Mark Warburton did not see a single defeat at home, but once the top flight was attained, Fortress Ibrox, in the league at least (cup competitions were a bitter pill to swallow most of the time at Ibrox) was no longer and Rangers’ first season back in the SPL saw three home losses.
Not too bad in theory but we did only manage a third place finish. Then we look at this season; seven losses already and we aren’t even in April yet.
Staggeringly only two of those losses were under Caixinha – one the disgrace against Celtic, the other the Hibs loss with the Jack red card.
Graeme Murty, who a number of fans have decided is far better than Caixinha and has reintroduced the optimism factor, has lost five at Ibrox including three with the new signings.
We don’t dispute there is a better feeling at Ibrox, but when you look at the bare stats and the frankly horrible home record, a lot of that feeling is thanks to the away record. It is not incredible, it is what a Rangers team should be achieving. But the home record stinks.
And it has stunk worse under Graeme Murty than any other single manager in Rangers’ recent history.
You can mitigate all you like for fans putting too much pressure on the players and make claims that Ibrox is not a good atmosphere these days; but the place was far worse when the Ashley crew were around and sack the board was going on.
Yes, the opponents weren’t as tough as they are now, but Rangers didn’t have Greg Docherty and Jamie Murphy back then either. It was Ian Black and Fraser Aird.
The simple harsh truth is no manager since 2012 has lost as many at Ibrox as Murty has.
Let’s spin the record at Ibrox out to all competitions:
2012/2013 – L4 (Ally)
2013/2014 – L0 (Ally)
2014/2015 – L4 (Ally)
2015/2016 – L2 (Warby)
2016/2017 – L1 (Warby) L2 (Pedro)
2017/2018 – L3 (Pedro) L5 (Murty)
This is no way Ibrox Noise demanding the return of any of Ally, Warby or Pedro – far from it. But it is an attempt to illustrate the ‘good feeling’ sense we all have (even us on the site) had recently is a borderline illusion – we have seen great players coming in and that has excited us.
We have seen a good run in the SPL and that has been uplifting. But more probing analysis tells a different story, a story of how no manager has actually been worse than Murty when it comes to the numbers.
You want to point to the away record? It is a fair point – our away record is far stronger. But guess what;
Pedro Caixinha only lost two matches away from home. Murty has lost four.
The numbers simply do not add up as evidence Murty is taking us in a truly better direction.
We ‘feel’ better, but that, for us, is far more down to the fact we have some great players now. Players like Murphy, Cummings, Docherty, an on form Windass.
Murty’s general stats as Rangers manager are actually among the worst of the lot. As you can see above.
The one legacy of Murty is getting the best out of Windass – and the tactical genius there was putting him behind the striker, otherwise known as his ‘best position’. The fact every other manager played him on the left wing out of position has been converted into ‘tactical brilliance’ from the current manager rather than simply plugging a square peg into a square hole while accommodating Jamie Murphy, a dedicated left winger.
We know this probably sounds like a vicious attack on Murty, we do (it’s not intended as one, just a presentation of the facts). And we know how fickle we’ve seemed, given how positive we were up till Celtic.
But we also urged caution – and that Celtic, then Killie were the really big tests – the fact Murty failed them both badly made the Hibs loss a lot worse than an isolated incident.
But regardless of all of this, the record at Ibrox is an inexplicable eyesore, and whoever the heck the manager is, until that is massively improved, Rangers will do no more than fight for second place.