Steven Gerrard reveals major issue at Ibrox

Once again Steven Gerrard has admitted his fringe players just aren’t up to it, by revealing disappointment in how poorly they stepped up to the plate last night.

Ibrox Noise moaned about how frankly rank rotten the Hallidays, Joneses, Barkers and Ojos had been, and it appears the manager agrees, and that notion of pushing themselves further away after the Tashkent friendly was only affirmed further after the visit of Stranraer.

He said:

“If you take into consideration we were playing in front of close-to 40,000 at home on a decent pitch against a team who are two leagues below, I don’t think I can give certain players or certain individuals a better opportunity. Some of them haven’t taken that opportunity tonight but unfortunately, some of the senior players that were given an opportunity as well haven’t taken that opportunity.”

For the second time in only a few days Gerrard has stated his fringe players have wasted an opportunity to deliver, and it’s evident he means Jones, Halliday, Barker and Ojo. Because no one else was a fringe starter/sub in the match.

We’ve already analyses Jones’ performance, but the Halliday Jones partnership was less than non-existent. It’s curious – Barisic managed to make a bit more out of the partnership with Jones earlier in the season, but Halliday was very poor as was Jones – as if they rubbed off on each other.

Meanwhile Barker and Ojo’s cameos were a complete waste of time all in.

It just confirms what we’ve feared – outwith our main rotating match group of McGregor, Tavernier, Helander, Goldson, Katic, Edmundson, Barisic, Davis, Kamara, Jack, Arfield, Aribo, Kent, Morelos, Defoe and perhaps Stewart, there is a painful lack of quality.

And last night did nothing to disprove this.