We can’t help wondering why on earth Ianis Hagi, John Souttar, and Scotty Arfield were all insulted via one-minute sub cameos yesterday.
The Rangers trio, all returning from injury, were given solitary minutes for purposes known only to Michael Beale and we can’t shake off the sense it was a bit disrespectful to all three, especially Arfield.
There was no reason to bring them on that late, and every reason to give all three a good solid 10 maybe 20-minute cameos to get some movement in the legs, with the game pretty much won.
But for some reason, once again this manager and his subs seem to be singing from a different song sheet to the rest of us, and he felt the best approach was to give all three the final minute and likely not even a touch of the ball (only Souttar actually got a couple).
Some may argue it was just easing them in, but come on, that just doesn’t wash.
We’ve seen this before, players being brought on in the last minute – but 99% of the time it’s for timewasting purposes. We have seen the 1% too, where a manager was criticised for insulting a major player by bringing him on in the last 30 seconds. It does happen.
But we just can’t see the good this triple change did for anyone. They all knew they’d get barely a minute, and it’s not like it boosted their fitness. The stadium was also about two-thirds empty by this point.
So it’s hardly a ‘taste’ of the Ibrox crowd/action either, given they went on, jogged a bit, then came off.
We know some of the material on the site today seems negative, after a win, but it’s hard to take a lot of positives now that the league is as good as gone, we lost the cup final, and our players can’t even show up for more than 45 minutes in a match.
It’s just a little disheartening when we see the goal difference they’re ahead by, and we can’t even muster the interest to nab a few against a hopeless Killie.
Still, at least we’ve still got the Scottish Cup to aim for, right?