Motherwell and their ‘anti-football’ at Ibrox

We’re hearing this a lot over the past 24 hours, how Motherwell played anti-football and what a disgrace it was.

Indeed, most Rangers fans have condemned their negativity and that they went all out to sit in and defend.

Most Rangers fans, that is, who forgot Lionel Messi accusing us of the same thing in 2007 against Barca, where the term was indeed coined in the first place.

We recall it well – us fans defended our team resolutely, saying ‘what else did Messi and Barca expect’. We justified our tactics based on the football Barca played, and the fact we were an infinitely inferior football team.

Just as Motherwell are to us.

We’re in the minority at Ibrox Noise for this one – as ugly as Motherwell were on the eye, and as disappointing as it is to see a 5-5 formation, Rangers are so far ahead of the Steelmen on the pitch that it’s frankly a compliment to how good we are that Steve Robinson elected for this tactic.

We completely understand why they went this route, why they sat in, why the low blocks were their main strategy, and it frankly nearly worked for them.

Just like it actually did work for us back in 2007.

Now, it’s true that we did at least have Daniel Cousin up top to carry a bit of the weight and take some pressure off the back, but he was limited in just how much he could get the ball and what he could do. So yes, Motherwell kind of having no striker was even more extreme than us, but that non-striker setup still managed to score which is more than Rangers did that night.

Teams don’t want to be slaughtered by this Rangers side when they come to Ibrox. We’ve rattled so many goals in against fine sides at our home that a weaker side like Motherwell want to do everything they can to even get a point.

So the next time you take Robinson apart for his tactics, remember, we did the same thing too and we defended it.

As we had every right to.