Of course, a lot of Rangers fans reading Ibrox Noise’s coverage of our title collapse will be wondering why we are not blaming the Rangers players. Why does all the blame rest on Danny Rohl? The problem is simple. Rangers’ squad is extremely poor in the first place. It is dire.
Squad quality questioned
All that Rohl did in January was make that worse, with some terrible signings who made things even more painful. So yes, the players do have a big part to play. They are the ones who go out onto the pitch. They are the ones who do the job. But now these are Rohl’s players. Just like they were Clement’s, and Beale’s.
Manager responsibility
The problem here is that players always give as much as they can according to the instructions they have been offered. What we see on the pitch is the manager’s instruction. This is always the case. When individual mistakes happen, of course, that is down to a player, but you win as a team and you lose as a team.
Team shaped by manager
You cannot always blame an individual player for a mistake, even although many Rangers fans are slaughtering James Tavernier for his role in Rangers’ loss. But ultimately, a team’s structure and display is completely in the image of its manager. The manager sets out the team, the system, makes changes. All of it is under his instruction.
System not working
Consequently, blaming the players is a bit of a misnomer. They are simply doing what they are told. If what they have been told is not good enough, then they are not going to be doing the right things. They are going to be making the mistakes. They are going to be lost. The system will not work.
Individual quality remains
Now, when we look at Rangers’ squad, it is a terrible squad by Rangers’ standards, but it still has quality in it. It is hard to argue against Nico Raskin. Of course, we know that he has been keen on a move for a long time, but at the same time, he is still a professional who does his job because he is not going to get the move if he is playing poorly and puts in no effort on the pitch.
Mixed player performances
The same applies elsewhere. Tuur Rommens is a great player and we have no blame on him whatsoever. He has produced completely since he joined us, but other players are poor. We will cover the Emmanuel Fernandez fiasco in due course, but he is a terrible defender. Nasser Djiga is a good defender, but he has been lost in a system that does not fit him at all. James Tavernier, the less said, the better.
Spain trip failure
But the reality is that once again, while the players do, of course, play a role in any loss, of course they do, the manager is the one who set them out. He is the one who created the positions, the system, the style, who instructed them on everything. And of course, let us not forget the little break to Spain that was supposed to reset and regroup everything.
Conclusion on Rohl
Instead, Rangers have come back looking even worse. That was Danny Rohl’s big two weeks of, shall we say, a mini pre season and Rangers are even more dire after it. It is a coach who is completely out of his depth. So of course, while the players are absolutely part of the problem, and we have never denied that the squad is well below proper Rangers standard, there is enough quality in there at least to do a lot better than what you are doing in the league.
Manager ultimately accountable
That is on Danny Rohl. The buck always stops with the boss. Always has and always would. Even, back in the day, despite us trusting implicitly the great Walter Smith, if things went wrong on the pitch, it was on the manager, it was on Walter, just like it was on Dick Advocaat and Alex McLeish. Even the greatest in history get things wrong. Unfortunately these days, our managers are of such low calibre that they get far more wrong than right, and they are always out of their depth, until that is, Rangers actually pick their finger out of their backside and appoint someone who has a clue. Blaming the Rangers players? They’re not all the problem.