If one thing among the gamut of post mortems over Tuesday night became clear, it was the massive difference Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Jack make at this level.
Rangers have never played a UEL group match or KO match without Morelos, and that goes a long way to showing why we’ve been so strong at that level, but it’s that Ryan Jack defensive loss that’s arguably just as big.
We’ve been extolling Jack’s virtues as a massive CL weapon for us, and some months ago we regaled you with the glorious news that his return was estimated to be around the CL qualifiers and it gave us a far superior chance of qualifying.
Naturally that hasn’t happened, and Rangers’ defence was frankly exposed – Jack’s presence would have made the world of difference there.
As for Morelos, his bullying and mischief in the heart of defence is a huge tool for the club, and while Cedric Itten actually had a decent night, it was a distance off the striking masterclass the Colombian delivers at this level.
And without Jack and Morelos Rangers really were missing two of their biggest assets, big-time players who make the difference at this standard of football.
Jack won’t be back for the next one, and Morelos is touch and go for it.
It’s a huge shame, because Rangers need John Lundstram to massively up his defensive responsibilities, and there’ll be no Glen Kamara to help him out, while either Itten or Sakala will lead the line again if Alfie isn’t there and both of these are currently one heck of a downgrade.
Did Jack and Morelos’ absences make all the difference on Tuesday? It didn’t help, that’s for sure.
The team that was put out should have still had enough to beat that Malmö team. I think we made them look better than they were, especially in that 3 minutes of madness. Hopefully, with another weeks running and another game in the legs we’ll be ready for them at Ibrox and play the way we know this team can. No more room for any more costly individual errors though.
Broxi is right enough we had chances and gave them the result on a plate. I have been talking about Rangers getting another striker and another defensive experienced midfielder in for ages. I hope we are signing this young Columbian Algeria I also hope Veerman can happen to we need more quality.
Stevie G
Has had enough to time to really understand how he wants all his team selections to play
Each game that comes there way.
The biggest problem is the concentration level from all the players people switch off for
Set pieces free-kicks against no one picking up runners.
Corner kicks no one defending front posts and back posts.
People not taking ownership of picking up the players they are told to man mark.
These are basics in playing football also the first 25 minutes in a game and the second half 25 minutes determines how the outcome of games will generally work out these are critical periods in a game that generally determine the outcome of a game.
Stevie and the rest of the management team should know this really they have had 3 years now to really kick on.
If we don’t concentrate for the 90 minutes against Malmö next week and do end up with lapses in concentration then we only have ourselves to blame if we don’t beat Malmö football is a 90 minute game make the same mistakes for 3 or 4 minutes again and we can kiss goodbye to picking up £30,000000 in the champions league.
Now that cash can really kick us on and strengthen the team for the better.
I only played football at semi-pro level so this is just my honest opinion.
But we do have better quality players to beat Malmö over 2 – legs surely.
Many thanks Cmon the Gers.
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