If there’s one fundamental thing that Rangers fans and, we assume, Derek McInnes learned from the Saint-Étienne friendly, it’s that the team is a long way off being ready.
Rangers remain far from ready
It was, of course, naturally quite slow-paced. Yes, the home side did run out 2-1 winners thanks to two rather lazy penalties conceded by the visitors.
Nevertheless, the times that the host defence was carved open did not bode well. Neither did the number of times the midfield was overwhelmed. That is particularly concerning given the fact that action starts in serious earnest in barely ten days.
Dundee United are waiting and they will not be an easy foe. They will be desperate to get off to a good start this season.
Rangers, of course, as the visitors, don’t have the best track record on our travels in recent times.
New signings expected
Of course, it’s all different now. We have Derek McInnes and Rangers and we’re building a new squad. We are, of course, hoping to have new signings in by then.
Indeed, McInnes has claimed that we’ll have a couple of new signings in by Sunday. We will see if that does manifest itself.
Until then, regardless, it’s abundantly clear that the system last night and the entire performance weren’t quite there yet. In fact, they’re a long way off.
Saint-Étienne had technical superiority
The problem we have, of course, is that Saint-Étienne were technically far superior to Rangers in just about every department.
This is a Ligue 2 side in France. They are a solid team and they are typically more of a Ligue 1 side. They are the perfect type of team to play in pre-season because they are not a marquee, top-level side.
However, they are from the second division of a strong top-five league. That proves a level of competence and technical quality that required Rangers to match up.
Alas, the home side wasn’t quite able to.
Rangers remain short
Put simply, the fact is that we are not exactly ready, just like Hearts were not for their qualifier. We’ll get to that one in a separate article.
However, the point here is that Rangers are short. They’re short of where they need to be. While the players have started arriving, not enough have gone out.
There is still too much slop there and it needs to be cleared out. Of course, as we’ve spoken about before, Nico Raskin is the big unlock.
Simply put, more effort is required. More needs to be done because Rangers aren’t there yet.
There’s a better feeling about the club, of course. However, the performances and results thus far in pre-season just don’t look ready.
We will see if there’s any sharp improvement by the time West Ham come to Ibrox. But we’re not holding our breath.