So having spewed out a vague piece on the rather rotten afternoon we’ve just witnessed at Ibrox, we wanted to offer a more considered ‘things we learned’ article from a really bad Rangers loss.
Without further ado, here’s things we learned from Rangers v Motherwell:
1: We are so physically weak. Whatever you think of Alan Muir’s refereeing, it’s not the first time a Rangers side has been outmuscled and just plain bullied. No Rangers boss has tried to address it, and we still consistently field slight players. Tavernier, Goldson, Ridvan, Raskin, McCausland and later Silva are the types of players who just get pushed about. Beaten up. Knocked to the floor.
And then fans complain refereeing isn’t protecting us. Well, it doesn’t help our players are wimps and frequently allow themselves to be bullied. To ‘resolve’ this we sign slight-framed Mohamed Diomande, who deeply embarrassed himself with that dive incidentally.
We’re just weedy a lot of the time.
2: Connor Goldson will let Rangers down time and time again, and today was yet another example of him guilty as charged. But as per usual, he’s immune under the fourth manager in a row. We are starting to truly feel he has a play clause in his contract now. He also managed to screw up at both ends of the field today, which is a new one for his repertoire.
3: Nico Raskin hasn’t kicked a ball in anger since May. He is so heartless and poor, and we’re starting to see why Liege lost interest in him in late 22. He’s rotten and his attitude is bad. And yet the club just loves to feature him repeatedly in RTV material.
4: Diomande hasn’t actually impressed us much aside two admittedly great goals, and he seems very weak in general. His dive today was embarrassing and there’s no condoning it. If that’s the kind of thing he’s going to do regularly we’re not looking forward to it.
5: Philippe Clement is yet another manager who just loves to field stupid XI’s. Yet again we’re seeing an un-optimised XI, with Dujon Sterling as a winger again for God’s sake, plus THREE holding midfielders. He’s been getting away with these dumbass lineups for a while, but it bit us in the backside against Motherwell with a deeply disjointed performance.
6: Ross McCausland is just not doing it. Doesn’t beat a man and can’t offer anything. We compared him recently to DaMarcus Beasley, but we can’t see some of Europe’s best teams wanting to sign McCausland on this form (Beasley was at PSV and City). He is, however, now out injured likely for a while and that doesn’t help matters.
7: Thanks to Clement’s hideous decision to select Oscar Cortes on ‘that’ Killie pitch, we lost him for the season, and now with McCausland likely joining him we have just Scott Wright. Hilariously, Clement chose Silva over him when the NI winger went off injured which shows what he thinks of the ex-Aberdeen man. Marvellous.
8: Rangers’ defence might have great numbers in the league and be the best overall, but all that appears to highlight is how miserable the others are. Once again James Tavernier offered nothing but a penalty and a few crosses, rarely being at the back where he was needed. Goldson is completely useless, as always, and poor John Souttar is getting it from fans because he wasn’t able to cover his pathetic partner. Ridvan did have a good match. But it all boils down to the usual from yet another Rangers manager who doesn’t bother dealing with the defence. What must Leon Balogun be thinking?
9: Dessers gets frustrated far far too easily, and today he decided, after having a shot blocked by Mugabi, to have a clear and visible go at Ross McCausland who hadn’t done a thing wrong in that instance. This is not what we need, the players can instruct each other but in this case, McCausland was innocent and not deserving of being blasted.
10: Tactics were wrong from the first whistle, and Clement didn’t change it, just like he didn’t at Killie. He got away with that one because Jack Butland made a killer save on 50 minutes to keep it 1-0, and then FINALLY brought Sterling on for the hapless McCausland, but this time at Ibrox his goalie didn’t bail him out. And Stuart Kettlewell absolutely deserved the 3 points.
11: Boy did we need a clinical striker in January.
Now, it is completely down to how this manager and his players respond to this.
It’s a bloody nose, one that’s been waiting for a while.
We will learn a lot about this Rangers team by how they react to this one.
It was a stinker, and we need a response.