Stevie needs to make a change – and he might not like it…

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Stevie needs to make a change – and he might not like it…
Might be time to rip things up...

So, what went wrong last Sunday? Why is it Rangers are struggling, when we should be winning by three or four goals?

If we look at the tactics it has to be said that we did well in both defence and midfield. We contained Livingston enough and we could move the ball into their penalty box whenever we wanted.

But the problem is the interplay in the final third of the field, in the box? There is none. All the slick passing suddenly deserts the team, there are no clever one two touches.

Being blunt, it looks like the strikers have never sat down to discuss tactics with the midfield…

In too many matches, the midfielders seem unable to find the strikers, nor do the midfielders seem to know where the strikers are going to run.

There is just zero coordination between our midfield and our attack.

We do not usually talk about the ‘other’ team, but there is a small and subtle difference, tactically.

When Celtic move in for the kill their attack is ruthless. A lone striker will suddenly dash across the line or move back up the field. This causes either a moment of confusion or the defenders to relax. Then the very next second four or five Celtic players will suddenly rush into the box in a coordinated movement, just as a pass is fired into the box.

With a low block there are then suddenly 15 players in the box and there is now a 1 in 3 chance that a Celtic player can get his foot on the ball.

Over 90 minutes this guarantees at least several shots on goals, and from those it is normal to score at least one or two goals.

Rangers, instead, will put a 5’ 10 player in the box, usually alone, and then hope, because that is all we seem to do.

Often our attack is firing in a pass, and hoping to place a pinpoint pass on Morelos’ boot or head.

When teams are sitting in deep, the chance to get a good scoring chance is small. The sad fact is, after the first 10 minutes against Livingston the home players knew exactly what to expect. And with no sudden loading of the box they had almost nothing to do all day. And that’s the weakness on Rangers’ part – an unwillingness to take risk and fill the opposition up with our bodies. To overload them.

Being blunt, I just cannot understand our tactics at the moment.

There is a time for neat interplays, but sometimes what is required is to bombard a penalty box with long balls, quick moves, flighted balls and low balls into the mass, to just confuse the other side to the point they make mistakes.

We have been talking about this problem for a long time at IN. This year Celtic are going for 9.5, and we no longer can afford these stupid draws.

Stevie, it’s time to change the style.

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  1. It seems to me that our neat passing play is designed to get the ball wide for a cross into the box. Generally it’s not a bad tactic but for us it’s not. We could fire 20-30 crosses and 20 corners into the box, we often do, and not get on the end of any of them. All we do is play into the hands of big burly defenders who would stand there all day heading balls away. We either have to find someone who can get on the end of those crosses or flood the box with many players or simply don’t put crosses in.

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