OnlyOneAmoruso 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 http://www.rangers.co.uk/articles/20...254024_1967825 Da Marcus Beasley got 70 minutes of football under his belt this afternoon as a Rangers second string lost 2-1 to Kilmarnock at Murray Park. The US international looked sharp and lively throughout and opened the scoring in the first half with an excellent finish after Andy Little had found him in space on the right flank. Killie, who named an experienced starting eleven which included Alan Combe, David Fernandez, Gavin Skelton and Connon Sammon, provided a strong challenge on the day for the Light Blues. And with 40 minutes played Neil Alexander was beaten by an excellent 25 yard shot from midfielder Jamie Adams. Beasley, however, was always a threat and just seconds before the half time whistle he should have put his side back in front. Stephen Stirling slipped a great pass between Killie's central defenders to his American teammate but his delicate lob went inches over the bar. The second-half was tight with both teams having chances to take the lead but it was Killie that eventually found the net. A good passing move cut open the Gers defence down the right and when the ball was drilled low in to the danger area Sammon was there to fire it past Neil Alexander from close range. Coach Tommy Wilson made several changes to his team after the break but the 90 minutes proved an excellent work-out for both sides. Beasley and Little, in particular, impressed while the return of Danish midfielder Thomas Kind Bendiksen, who has been out for almost a year and a half with a knee injury, was a further boost for the youth department. Heres a run down of how each Rangers player performed. This isn't by me, it's from Laudrup1 on FF. Alexander did what we all know he can do. Was steady and reliable, caught a couple of crosses well and took two corners out of the air too. Didn't have any chance with the second which was a close range tap in. The first...now don't get me wrong, it was a cracking shot high into the net and close to the top corner...however he 'nearly thought' about moving for it. I think this is the slight difference between him and McGregor (and the reason that Smith took the option he did this summer over the no.1) I've seen it a couple of times with him. It's very hard to criticise but I sometimes think to myself "McGregor would have gone for that / actually got it" Certainly, if we're selling folk and McGregor is one to go, we're not gubbed if he has to stand in as we all knew anyway. There's not a gulf between them there like we've had between any other no.1s and their deputies (think more Klos / Waatereus than Goram / Maxwell) The two full backs. Cole's very much in the Stevie Whittaker mould of full backs. His tackling from time to time is suspect but he's good at getting forward (doesn't chip in with many goals all the same) and has looked decent for a couple of seasons now. He played reasonably well as usual but alot of the Killie play went down our left hand side. Kinniburgh is just back from an injury after a succesful loan spell at Oxford. If he hadn't been injured towards the end of that loan, he'd likely have gone on loan again after Christmas. From the first u19s double winning team, he's in the same boat as a number of others. I see him as a very capable player but like McMillan, Shinnie and Gallagher, given they're all 20-22 years old now, they're time may have passsed. I could well see Kinni being moved on in the summer with Wylde having appeared in the first team ahead of him already. The two centre halfs are promising. There's been alot of talk about Witkorski in the last wee while as folk become more aware of him. Both him and Chris Scott are doing well in the 19s and, considering they were up against guys like Sammon and Fernandez yesterday, didn't make too many errors at all. The second goal could well have been defended better all the same. They're maybe not "classy" in the Danny Wilson sense of the game but do have more presence. Nothing to suggest they won't progress further as they continue. Both are still available at 19s past this season too. Stirling, for me, is a cracking player. He's got a bit of a swagger about him in the middle of the pitch. Quite slight but will dictate play in games. Not comparing him to Gazza at all but he'll go past players in a similar manner by harldy moving the ball or his body. Again, like Wylde, I can see him being retained while the likes of Shinnie move on. They're maybe not any better as players (give or take) but being a couple of years younger, have that on their side. He showed his usual performance yesterday with a couple of great balls through to Little and small individual pieces of play that light the game up from time to time. Was good to see Bendiksen back. He was struggling with the pace in the initial stages as you'd expect of someone out for the best part of 18 months. Before his injury I was saying he reminded me or Reyna (and having seen more of Davis now, him too) in the sense that he can play on the right or in the middle and does alot of work while contributing with forward runs. I'd be surprised to see him leave without him getting another year of a chance given the problems he's had. Given that we paid �£100k for him too, I'd imagine he's expected to make something of it. He'll need time to get back into it though. Jamie Ness only played the first half before being replaced by Hutton. He's more of a Thomson type player. A left sided defensive midfielder. Big noises were made about him as Wilson and Fleck were also touted for the first team. McCulloch and Edu plus Thomson all being there in that role for the first team may mean he's going to have to wait a bit longer but he's got a great chance based on his career so far. Did have a poorer game yesterday than he can though. Beasley was just his usual self. Got hoofed in the air a good few times from late and poor tackles. Other times he was just bounced off the ball. Did make a great run for his goal though and took it well. I hate hearing folk go on about him being too lightweight. He's got a tonne of caps for America and played in a CL semi with Eindhoven against Milan which they only lost in the last minute? Are folk telling me that being up against Maldini wasn't as challenging as anything the Hamilton left back can do in the SPL? He is light but while the SPL is a rough league, it doesn't mean someone of his stature shouldn't be able to handle it. He's shown on a few occasions he can do it but we need to play to his strentgths and not expect him to be making tackles like John Brown. Some of our fans just can't accept a player who's not a "traditional Ranger" and always want to criticise. I think along with his lacking stature being blamed for his injuries, he's actually had a bad run of it with us. I hope he can show more of what he did at Tannadice earlier in the season. There's signs he can be a player for us but will never be a Laudrup. Little impressed me most of all yesterday. The Reserve Team Loyal have all long been of the opinion that Rory Loy scores more goals, seems to be quicker and shows more skillful turns to beat players than Little does. For what ever reason though, Little's ahead of him in the managements plans. Yesterday he played as well as I've seen from either of the two of them in a while. He was beating mean in the box to create space for a couple of shots and also held the ball up well regularly (getting the assist for the goal in that manner too) He's not a spectacular player in the sense that he won't do what Fleck does at this level from time to time and score a screamer but has attributes which mean, as he's shown, he will be capable in the first team. For me, he was our MOTM yesterday. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneAmoruso 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Author Share Posted February 17, 2010 Full marks if you read the full thing 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluedell 5,329 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Thanks for posting. Nice to see the players being described in these terms. Puts it in perspective for people like me who don't know much about the reserves. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilledbear 16 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Have only seen Stirling a couple of times, but liked what I saw. Thanks for posting. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneAmoruso 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Author Share Posted February 17, 2010 Stirling does look good. Him and Ness are suffering from playing in such an important position (and therefore more of a risk to put them in straight away) and the players in front of them such as Davis, Thomson, McCulloch & Edu. Laudrup1 gives an excellent review of the players. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamh 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 With no Rangers tv on virgin now you dont get to see the reserves/19s so its good to get reports on there progress.Thanks for posting 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneAmoruso 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Author Share Posted February 17, 2010 A poster on FF and RM called elfideldo has an excellent website focused solely on our youth players. http://rfcyouths.wordpress.com/ 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super_Ally 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 A poster on FF and RM called elfideldo has an excellent website focused solely on our youth players. http://rfcyouths.wordpress.com/ There's a sticky for his site at the top of this forum and he provides us updates from time to time. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyOneAmoruso 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Author Share Posted February 17, 2010 Wasn't sure 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super_Ally 0 Posted February 17, 2010 Share Posted February 17, 2010 Wasn't sure Can't hurt to repost as maybe others have missed it too and Elfideldo doesn't always get on to post updates (I don't think, apologies if you do). 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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