“A standout”, “out of his depth” – who were these in Rangers’ player ratings v Celtic

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“A standout”, “out of his depth” – who were these in Rangers’ player ratings v Celtic


Following yet another bad result in an Old Firm, Ibrox Noise will try to put together some player ratings. See how many you agree with.

Allan McGregor:

Silly kick out at Ajer aside, a fantastic display from McGregor which stopped a potential rout. Not that the competition was strong but Rangers’ best player by a mile and made a lot of important stops and catches. 8

James Tavernier:

Didn’t make enough runs forward and when he did his (rare) crossing let him down – sat back too much as well and Tierney often had the beating him of him anyway. 5

Connor Goldson:

After a slightly shaky start he grew into the match and defended pretty well. Read the game impressively and had a number of good aerial clearances but we still can’t shake that feeling he’s not been quite the same player since Killie. 7

Nikola Katic:

Tough as an ox at the back and worked as hard as anyone. Even started getting forward as the game grew. Didn’t let anyone down. 7

Borna Barisic:

Inconsistent afternoon – some good crossing but some wild attempts, while occasional touch of defending was reasonable but wasn’t in the game enough to have any kind of real influence. 6

Ryan Jack:

A slightly inconspicuous match for Jack – didn’t get the foothold into the midfield the way he has previously, and if anything looked a bit tired. 6

Ovie Ejaria:

A few nice occasional touches but mostly gave the ball away and looked out of his depth. 4

Scott Arfield:

The best midfielder by a mile, Arfield was a class above his central team mates and his touch, use of the ball and work rate were to be admired, if not absolutely perfect. 7

Kyle Lafferty:

Tried hard, but absolutely nothing came off for him – supported Morelos best he could but it wasn’t his day. 6

Ryan Kent:

Surprisingly good display from this lad – had the beating of Lustig a few times and defended very well too. Worked like a dog and was a standout. 7

Alfredo Morelos:

We’re utterly frustrated by this kid. Often he shows hard work, good team play, and gets goals. Others, like today (and in Russia) he just doesn’t deliver on any level and while he doesn’t hide, he just doesn’t seem to be focused. In his defence he was a bit isolated which didn’t help, but this was a weak and uninspired display from Alf. 5

Steven Gerrard:

He’s done a lot right, but while Motherwell was his first blip, today was just a complete dud. The common feeling among fans is there appeared to be absolutely no gameplan – and it’s true – the players didn’t press, sat in deep, rarely went forward and the possession was completely non-existent. The formation up didn’t suit Lafferty, and we’re not even clear if it was 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2 or what. His utter lack of changing shape at half time or making any substitutions was an indictment of his inexperience at this level and the appalling attacking options on the bench. 4

We’re not going to be too brutal on Gerrard. He’s still a rookie and he’s still learning. But anyone thinking the gap to Celtic had closed hugely only needed to watch today’s rather meagre offering.

There has been improvement, for sure. Getting to UEL group stage was colossal. But Rangers’ bread and butter is the SPL and at that level, incredible to say it, but we’re not doing anywhere well enough.

Much to ponder!

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15 COMMENTS

  1. sat back far to deep expected more, some players looked tired,we should have got stuck into them bad day hope gerrard learns something from today

  2. Generally agree with scores, couple of exceptions.
    Tav was playing a guy seen as the best Left Back in Scotland. I think he got poor support from Kent, would have been better with Candeias. His crossing was poorer than normal though
    Gerrard. Think he should have had Candeias in, should have subb'd Ejaria when it was clear he was floundering Agree formation was confusing, but may have been deliberately fluid. Would have liked to have seen subs earlier, but we were much better second half.
    We go again after the break. Keep the faith
    RTID

  3. Agreed! Piss poor all round! wrong team wrong formation whatever it was meant to be! Players were woeful! How many times did we pass the ball out of the park?? Amateurish! No change of tactics, wrong subs. Why Middleton?? If you never start him and rarely bring him on then why bring him on 1-0 down in a old firm game?? Ejaria has improved but he should have been subbed at half time. (I wouldn't have started him)
    Just like every other recent old firm game we sat back and allowed their midfield to dominate without any pressure, has anyone looked back at previous old firm games?? Stevie said we know their strengths and weaknesses we can exploit? We done zilch, unless it was the game plan to defend and hope they don't score coz dembele is away?? Major letdown! On a plus side.. Stevie isn't stupid so I'm confident he has learned from that shambolic performance today. Same goes for the players, 1st experience so will put it right with the help of returning injured players and new signings. How much did we miss coulibaly?? Rant over.

  4. Ejaria for their goal man just has to wipe out Rogic and take the booking. And then total ball watching for the goal – the kind of mistakes that belonged in a Rangers team last year. How simple! Just feel like if we had Coulibaly fit today in for Ejaria we could have got a point Ejaria was a man down. It's clear Gerrard wanted to frustrate and let Celtic have the ball today I just feel if that was his stratedy we should have played 1 striker and not Lafferty out of position. Surprised we dropped Candeais for a striker to play on the wing.

    It's been a tough 3 away games in the league to say the least.

    On reflection we are 4 points behind. Advantage Celtic who were deserving of 3 points. The break will be good to regroup, get Coulibaly back in for Ejaria and the boy Grezda who has to be a starter with the money we paid. Domestically it's not been the greatest but with phase 1 of the season done I feel the European success has left me feeling not all too down about today's result. Our next 5 league games 4 at home let's go win. Celtics hard run is still to come in the league unfortunately ours has came at the start. I saw a stat saying that this is Rangers worst start since 1989-1990 where unsurprisingly we went on and won that league. Let's not be too gloom.

    And on a side not maybe time now to properly work on 3-5-2 with this International Break with the players not away on duty.

    Mcgregor
    Goldson Worrall Katic
    Grezda/Kent Barisic
    Jack Coulibaly
    Arfield
    Lafferty Morelos

  5. Right, right slow down a bit here. Yes we got beat but they throw everything at us in the first half and let’s be honest done nothing. I wouldn’t blame the manger because he has got us to a place where it is globally proud to be a teddy bear again. If we take the pain of defeat out of the way it wasn’t that bad. If we got a goal or held on to the nil nil we all would be saying something a lot different. This is only my opinion.

    They have a 9 million pound centre forward who done nothing and missed a sitter. If that was Buffalo the press would be in melt down. The holy unwashed go on about how good their team is but they only beat our keeper, defence and whole team that’s been together for about 15 weeks if that only the once.

    Big Laff had two chances with headers, a wee bit belief and it would’ve be a different matter, El Buffalo had a chance and Tav had one also near the end.

    I know all this chat about this is our worst start in 29 years but who won the league that season? (Google it if you don’t) Aye it hurts, aye it’s them again, aye we are 4 points behind them but we are a lot better than last year and it doesn’t matter who is winning at the start of the season it matters who is winning at the end.

    So all fellow bears let’s pick each other up and get behind the team because it could be a lot worse you could wake up the morra morning sleeping with your sister like the beggars do.

  6. The first half looked like the match in Russia basically defend, defend,defend. It was a necessity in that match but I just cannot understand why Gerrard thought that allowing Celtic to have complete control of basically the whole pitch up until our penalty box was a tactic that would work. And coming out at the end blaming a refereeing decision for costing us the match in my opinion was poor.The majority of the players looked tired. I would cut them some slack due to the travelling etc. Most teams do struggle in their next match after a Euro tie and going to Parkhead was clearly to big an ask. I would still have expected some more fight though.

  7. Disappointed to say the least. We will get better, Celtic have had at least a hundred games as a team, we`ve had less than twenty. I`m positive the Rangers will be the dominant factor this coming year. Let`s have less negative moaning and a more tolerant reaction toward our growing team. Onward & Upward.

  8. Ratings- wouldnt bother 🚫
    We need to learn from today thats the only positive we can take from this match💪

    LETS GO WATP 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

  9. Ah well another disappointment. Hate living with this result but Rangers are improving. McGreggor outstanding. Jack, did he give the opposition the ball to allow for the goal? You know SG has had more experience in europe than scottish football so while this result is bad to take again hopefully he and McAllister can analyse what went wrong and improve. QUICKLY.

  10. A learning curve. Give them all a break. These guys have gelled quite quickly and today we faced the best opposition so far. Could of done better yes but we didnt get hammered like last year. A first defeat was coming, lets hope the lads learn something and get back on track next week. No euro ties for a few weeks either so they can freshen up and bring in the new faces too.

  11. Disagree with some of your markings and most of the comments on here. We had 8 players making their Old Firm debut today and it showed with most players stuck in the headlights. I'm sure it wasnt Gerrards intention to sit in and defend. I'm equally sure it wasn't his intention to lump the ball out of defence in an aimless fashion. The players never performed. Simple as. But I saw nothing from them today that makes me fear them for future matches. I saw enough in the last 20 minutes, without playing well, to suggest that if we can impose our game on them then we will come out on top.
    Better Rangers teams than this one have failed to perform against worse Ceptic teams. We will learn and we will recover. Being 4 points behind after visits to Pittodrie, Fir Park and the San Giro after 4 games is not a disaster. Keep the faith!!!

    • There was only 6 making old firm debut Robrob. You must have been watching a different game from me. This could easily have been 4 or 5 drubbing. SG tactics were to defend and were just to punt the ball long. Shagger was practicing the long ball in the warm up. We targeted Lustig as a weak link and tried to play the diagonal for Lafferty to knock down. Overall not good enough and still miles behind that mob.

  12. Im not one for being contreversial, my gut instinct is tellin me i would sell wee buffalo in january window if suitable offer was made. many good points to his game but so tempremental and runs the risk of seeing red, i also feel he's no closer to scoring against (them) than before. I would definetly use any sale in excess of 8m plus to add top striker. harsh? it's only personal opinion. we really could do with davis's experience to run that midfield. big lafferty is wasted unless played centrally.

  13. I just feel they would have had us if we did not defend you know if we went in and about them then we may have got a goal but i think they would have got two maybe three it was a big ask to defend for 90mins and walk away with a draw,i still think we are a better team now but some of our players got lost in this game,i am glad they did not get a goal in the first 20 mins best player was Mcgregor top keeper who does not have many off days if any and we should be thankful we got him.

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