If there was one notable negative from Rangers’ outstanding victory against Falkirk, it was that of the serial offender Emmanuel Fernandez. One pass, of course, summed up his diabolical evening in a nutshell. It was, of course, the one which saw him pass lazily into the middle without any awareness and give it straight to a Falkirk man, who should have finished but lacked the composure to do so. It was a solid save from Ivor Pandur, but one he could make with probably his eyes closed, but it was still one that needed to be made. The defender put Rangers in a complete hole there and Rangers fans are fuming with him.
Rangers fans fuming with Fernandez
The complaints from Rangers fans about the Nigerian international have rung all through the season. Lazy, unaware, prima donna and completely and totally disinterested in the match around him. Now, the curious thing about Manny, as he is called, is his clearance stats are outstanding. Very few in this Premiership clear the ball as many times as the English born defender does. For pure clearances, he is outstanding and extremely strong. He is 6th in the league for clearances. No defenders from Hearts or Celtic even come close. 35 clearances from Manny is the best from any of the supposed ‘top teams’.
He is also Rangers’ only left sided defender at the moment, and this is why Derek McInnes keeps him in. If we add the clearances to his foot orientation, he is fairly unique. It has been decided by McInnes despite that Rangers fans are fuming that he is willing to tolerate the mistakes, the errors and indeed laziness from the defender in order to gain the benefits from him.
A strange Fernandez Rangers defensive imbalance
Now, of course, the curious dichotomy to his left sidedness is the fact he’s being played currently on the right. We do not quite understand what that choice is for, or why Olwethu Makhanya himself, a righty, is being played on the left. It’s a strange choice, and it makes Rangers’ defence look very imbalanced and vulnerable.
A lot of the times that the team has been cut open is because neither of these two are on the correct side. Both of them are having to compensate for their orientation by turning into the middle. It doesn’t make much sense, and it means the spacing between them is a mess. Add to that the fact that communication between them is non existent, and Rangers’ defence is poor.
Fernandez comes under heavy fire from fuming Rangers fans
But Fernandez is coming under particularly heavy fire because of his laziness, his lack of concentration, his lackadaisical nature and the fact that he looks like he’s trying to just stroll through the matches. One commenter assessed that a big problem with him is he looks like he’s trying to create the big tackle, the Hollywood moment. He delays making the tackle too long because he’s waiting for the right moment to look good.
This is not good defending. This is not the way to defend. You go when you should, not when you think you’ll look the best. And that slightly immature selfish nature of the ex-Posh man costs Rangers a fair old amount of anxiety. But that pass into the middle really did sum him up and had a lot of hate aimed at him from fans.
Rangers need more from Fernandez
Ibrox Noise has been critical of Fernandez from the word go. Three headed goals as a result of some set pieces last season weren’t enough to persuade us otherwise. Sure not that he was anything more than an extremely below average defender. He looks every inch the £300,000 defender that Peterborough originally valued him at. This was before Rangers came along with a mug sign on their forehead.
He still to this day comes across as a very average defender outside of those dominant clearances. It has been mocked that if he wasn’t 6ft 4, he’d be selling drugs in a dodgy nightclub toilet. He simply does not come across in any way as a composed and astute defender with much intelligence. But he’s big, he’s tall and he gets his head to almost everything in the air while being a lefty. Which is why McInnes keeps him in.
But we do believe the defence needs to be more balanced. He needs to go on the left, not the right, and vice versa for Makhanya. If we don’t see that happening, the defence will continue to look frail. Rangers fans are fuming over that. But nevertheless, this is what we have for now, and we highly doubt that anyone new is going to be coming in before the deadline is closed tonight.