New players, same old Rangers

1
New players, same old Rangers
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JULY 26: Michael Beale Rangers manager during the pre-season friendly match between Rangers and Olympiaco at Ibrox Stadium on July 26, 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Steve Welsh/Getty Images)

Ibrox Noise’s Derek made a very pungent point this afternoon about Rangers, and indeed our ‘good friends’ Celtic and a comparison which is actually very interesting at this point.

ADVERTISEMENT

Last summer, when the season started, Celtic had to travel to Kilmarnock on the third match day.

They won at a canter, 0-5, with 20 shots, 11 of which were on target.

Yes, they were existing champions, but they also had a bunch of new players still settling into Scotland. They steam rollered Derek McInnes’ side into submission.

ADVERTISEMENT

Derek, our Derek, made the point today, that Celtic don’t win with great football, they win with intensity and overloading the opponent with players and shots.

Michael Beale has been alluding to the same style, attack attack attack – remember all that about ‘take the handbrake off’?

And yet his trip to Kille at the weekend, obviously a loss, saw, admittedly 21 shots, but only 5 of them were remotely on target. Derek made the claim that we just don’t shoot. Well he’s not quite bang on there – we do shoot, they’re just weak or off target most of the time.

ADVERTISEMENT

Celtic don’t care about missing, they care about shooting aggressively, and with the talent they have up front and in midfield, they just keep going for it.

Rangers? We take an age to set anything up, and when we finally take a ‘shot’ it’s some weak sclaffed effort or easily blocked. There’s a real lack of power in our team, and despite having a full summer window to sort that, we remain weak, slow and ponderous.

What about Ross County? Well, this counters the Celtic argument a little. They actually had less shots at Celtic Park than we did at Killie, just 18. The difference? 4 on target, 4 goals.

ADVERTISEMENT

The problem with Rangers last season was being wasteful, on top of a multitude of other issues.

Going by Rugby Park, we still very much are, despite having a whole new team.

So is it wastefulness, or a lack of relentlessness? It’s both, unfortunately.

No posts to display

1 COMMENT

  1. Why are we so bloody slow in our build up play we’ve brought in 9 new players and 6 of them are outfield players. We to inject pace into the game our forwards need to be getting in behind defenders even try taking decent shots from outside the box
    all this nonsense trying to walk the ball in to the net is a waste of time. 💙💙

Comments are closed.