Why this January signing must be fuming…

So as you may notice today on Ibrox Noise, we are hardly exactly thrilled with yesterday’s display. Anyone who took anything other than three points as a positive saw more in the win than we did, and much of it was down to continuing bizarre management from Graeme Murty, who can hardly feel smug at winning 4-0 against a side who mostly outplayed us.

But what disappoints us hugely among all the odd selection calls is the recent wasting of Greg Docherty, up till the Motherwell match arguably the best player at Ibrox this year and the most consistent.

The 21-year old £600K signing from Hamilton had been absolutely stellar – a powerhouse midfielder dominating the middle, feeding the channels, breaking up opposition play and working like a dog to cover grass.

His partnership with Sean Goss was working well, in the sense of his own form. True, Rangers’ own was diabolical, and the QPR man wasn’t playing his best, but Docherty was, and the symbiosis with the deep lying playmaker in the form of the former Man Utd man suited Docherty perfectly.

Cue the last two matches where Goss has been hooked to make way for a completely out of position Dorrans.

Docherty’s game has gone AWOL, and he has looked infinitely less composed, dominating, and far more lost.

The deep-lying work Goss did is gone, and Docherty is trying to pick up the slack, and it’s affecting his own game.

Indeed, he was hooked yesterday thanks to how the new setup has dimished his own performance – unable to damage and feed in the middle of the pitch, he is being rendered much more impotent and isn’t having the impact he used to – because Dorrans is out of position and not covering the tasks Goss used to. There are reports Docherty was injured, but we’ve been unable to confirm it. And it’s a moot point anyway.

The duo doesn’t work. Docherty is being rendered obsolete and Dorrans can’t do much damage where he is.

Furthermore, some Rangers ‘fans’ suggesting the kid is ‘never a Rangers player’ and smearing him thanks to the past two matches are either even more fickle than us at Ibrox Noise or simply haven’t a clue what makes a real Rangers player.

It’s another real shame because the kid is a future Scottish international, and maybe even captain of Rangers, and he looked beyond devastated at being subbed off – but also annoyed, as if he knew he wasn’t being helped by a tactical shift that is currently hurting his contribution.

We really hope Murty sees sense and reverts to a working partnership if he must persist with the 4-2-3-1 otherwise Docherty is going to keep on struggling and Dorrans is going to keep on being ineffective.

And we need better preparation going into the cup semi and the split.