“How often have we said this – 9” – Rangers players rated against Motherwell

Yesterday afternoon Rangers grinded their way to a hard-fought win against a tough Motherwell side who clearly weren’t there to make up the numbers.

Ibrox Noise brings you our ratings on a win Steven Gerrard’s men had to make.

McGregor:

Will be gutted to have been beaten the way he was, even if the finish was sharp. Didn’t have a lot else to do really, nothing outstanding at least. 6

Tavernier:

Another missed penalty but did assist the winner via corner for Helander, this was a patchy performance at best from Tavernier who really isn’t in a good place right now. He’s making individually solid moments but his overall demeanour and quality of play isn’t up to scratch. 6

Goldson:

Gave the ball away a number of times, some of which were extraordinarily poor and as usual was outside most of the notable defensive moments – never seems to be in the thick of the hard defending. Gone beyond complacency and has utterly lost any right to the shirt. But he’ll remain first choice. 5

Helander:

Not the superb Helander who held out Porto almost-singlehandedly, the Swede doesn’t appear to have adjusted yet to the pace and power of the SPL, and struggles to keep up or indeed read the game domestically. A bit easily done for Motherwell’s goal, but he did get the match winner with a sterling header. 6

Barisic:

How often have we said this this season: ‘our best defender’. In this case by a country mile. Maybe no assists this time but some of his delivery/passing again was outstanding and defensively he was superb, with growing confidence to commit to convincing brute force stopping as well as immaculate reading of the game. He bailed out Kamara a few times on Thursday, yesterday it was the turn of Helander to say thank you more than once. 9

Davis:

He was fairly good, if not perfect – played through the pain barrier for much of this one and it did impair him a touch, but he still managed some lovely passes regardless. Really has become a total leader for this team. 8

Aribo:

This lad is really dividing fans. There’s no denying we see some very nice moments from him, but we saw them from Ovie Ejaria too – just like Ejaria fans are judging what they see with Aribo, and while he had some very clever footwork which helped particularly in the first half, overall his contribution just isn’t quite hitting the spot yet. 6

Arfield:

A very underrated performance, Arfield looked a little refreshed from a week off, and did a lot of good work off the ball – he was responsible for a great deal of ball winning and pressing, and did his best stuff when he was chasing opponents down. A gritty and effective display. 7

Barker:

A hard-working performance, lacking in much incision, Barker looks a solid winger who will do a turn but in the grand scheme of things won’t be much more than squad. He didn’t let himself down but didn’t stand out much either. His injury, unfortunately, was no big loss to the XI. 6

Stewart:

Completely ineffective performance from Stewart, barely noticeable and the first to be hooked on a tactical basis. No wonder. 5

Defoe:

Clinical goal, but otherwise cut a bit of a frustrated figure on an afternoon where he didn’t get much service, and got bullied off the ball a lot. 6

Subs:

Kent:

Certainly his lowest-impact since returning, he managed one good run but ran out of ideas at the end of it. He’ll be better than this, but then he probably wasn’t expecting such a big cameo. 6

Morelos:

Didn’t really have a big impact which was unlike him. Maybe looking a little tired. 5

Ojo:

Had one decent run where, as usual, his decision making completely let him down. 5

Manager:

Steven Gerrard promised changes and he did make a few – Stewart got a start along with Defoe, and there was major adjustment in midfield. Unfortunately it made for a very disjointed performance with very few outstanding players. He wanted to rest personnel, but sadly the rotation didn’t work this time, and he, like the fans and the players, can just be delighted and relieved a match which looked to slip away still yielded 3 points. That was all that ultimately mattered. 7