Michael Beale’s post-match comments were the first evidence of the pressure Rangers’ manager is under, after he voiced the same basic point Ibrox Noise has been saying for weeks.
It doesn’t matter how much of the ball you have, how many shots, or even how many saves you make the goalie make, it only matters how many goals you score, and Rangers are desperately wasteful in that department.
He said:
“Sometimes I feel like we’re the most wasteful team in the final third that I’ve ever seen, really. The amount of chances we have in the games that we don’t take.”
And he’s correct, and it’s what separates Rangers from Celtic. It’s what makes this squad losers and not winners.
It matters not how much of the play you get, or how flashy your play is, and it doesn’t matter how many shots you get in – it ONLY matters how many goals you score, and in that sense, Rangers are heaps behind Celtic.
Rangers’ defence is also pretty atrocious and but for some outstanding goalkeeping by Robby McCrorie (more on him later) Rangers wouldn’t have beaten the Dons at Ibrox on Sunday.
Beale is showing the strain now – he knows that he has a gargantuan task this summer, to rebuild an absolutely pitiful squad into something resembling a competitor for the title.
See, we don’t expect 56 next season, we’ve already written it off, because we don’t think the surgery this summer will turn Rangers into champions.
But we know Beale is still under the pressure to deliver it, and he simply does not have the tools or budget at his disposal to bring in players that will surpass Celtic.
There are only so many brilliant Cantwell and Raskins one can mine from the world of football before the scouts get it wrong, before Beale gets it wrong and signs a Jack Simpson or a Jon McLaughlin.
So, the pressure? Huge? Ibrox Noise’s expectation? Minimal.
It’s not just that we don’t think Beale is up to it, which frankly we don’t, it’s that he’s not got the tools to do it either.
He’s not Walter who could spend £2M and bring in enough players for free in January to overnight turn Rangers into the best team in Scotland, as Walter did in 2007. He’s Michael Beale, who had a brief apprenticeship at QPR before being expected to overcome Celtic.
Again.
So forgive us if we agree with him. This squad is so wasteful and incapable of much – we just don’t think the summer work can change that.