Man Utd 0 - 0 Rangers: Player Ratings and MoM Poll

[ascender 352]

Very hard to single anyone out, but I think Broadfoot had a particularly good game given all the circumstances.

[Norris Cole 0]

As ascender says, it's tough to single out any one player after a performance like that, they were all superb last night. Gun to my head though, I'll go for Stevie Naismith, who I thought had one of his best games in a Rangers shirt, and who like the rest of the team appeared completely unawed in the surroundings.

 

We'll never get the credit for it, but last night was an absolutely magnificent result.

[Tannochsidebear 2,306]

I must say also that I was a bit worried about 75 mins from kick off when the Rangers players all came out to have a walk around. You could see that most of them were on their phones, no doubt saying "thats me on the pitch at OT", and then all taking photos of the ground.

 

My pessimistic thoughts were along the lines of "bloddy tourists, your no here tae take feckin photies, your representin the famous Rangers FC" and was wondering if they would have their game heads on or be overawed.

 

That thought evaporated when I seen the United line up on BBC website about 45 minutes from KO, and started thinking it might be possible to frsutrate them, as I didnt think they had enough creative quality in that line-up to carve us open, to which my mates were asking about my alcohol intake!

[Zappa 0]

Have to disagree with you all on MOTM this time.

 

Step forward Steven Naismith with a performance both offensive and defensive that was totally outstanding.

.

I'll go with Naismith too. For a striker to have that kind of workrate for the team when asked to play in midfield is phenominal. He made mistakes here and there like everyone else, but they're all human. I wasn't pleased with him at one point when we were breaking on them and he made a cracking pass forwards only to stop his run and leave only 2 attacking them on the counter because had he made the pass and continued his run & think we could have caught them out & at least got a decent shot on goal. Anyway, definitely the stand out player for me with Broadfoot a close second. Sorry, but broadfoot could never be MOTM for me because of those two times he stood with the ball for 5 mins trying to pick out a pass only to waste the chances. Other than that he was pretty damn good though. Was quite impressed with his performance.

[Zappa 0]

Was disappointed with Davis performance, thought he was very ineffective, but our worst player by a country mile was the empty shirt up front, who turned in yet another European performance to forget, cementing my belief that he cannot play the lone striker role with any effect at this level. Of course I had the benefit of seeing his off the ball efforts, for what they were, and he had an absolute stinker. Yes, it is hard when you are left about 40 yards away from your nearest team-mate, but you have to offer yourself for the out ball and too often he just didnt move at all, and refused to chase or put any pressure on the United back line, choosing instead to stand beside a centre half for most of the game, generally on the wrong side of play as well. Miller's Euro record since re-joining the club P8 W0 F0 tells you all you need to know.

.

Not sticking up for Miller here btw because I'm not a fan of him playing in that no-man's-land position and being lucky to get a sniff of the ball every 20 mins, but it does have one useful purpose & that's forcing them to generally keep 2 players back deep to cover him.

[Gazza_8 233]

What could Miller have done to improve his performance last night? There's just people you can't please. Unbelievable!

[alanmidd 0]

:me:

 

though he was outstanding in the 2nd half. He broke up the play time and time again

[ascender 352]

It was a strange game though and its interesting to see people's feedback as its a bit like the Scotland game in Lithuania where you read someone's comments about a player and wonder if it was the same game they were watching. The whole team did an amazing job. If I was being picky though, I thought Edu and Davis gave the ball away a lot in the first half and the lack of proper fullbacks also showed. Not criticism, just observations! All the players seemed to improve as the game went on, I guess as confidence and belief grew.

 

Most of the English reports I've read and comments on them do give WS a lot of credit while also pointing out that the Man Yoo team were still paced with players who'd walk in to most other premiership sides. As for the reaction north of the border from fans and media, it just shows them up for the small-minded parochial bunch they are. I fail to believe for one minute that 99% of fans in our position wouldn't be absolutely delighted with a point at Old Trafford, regardless of how they go about it. There's also people saying they'd rather their club went down fighting, regardless of the score. What a load of rubbish.

 

Its the same as the UEFA cup run where we were branded as playing anti-football. I didn't see much mention of this when Man Utd went to Barca and did the same thing. European football has changed over the last 5-10 years beyond all recognition from how it used to be. Its now the same handful of big-spending teams dominating year in, year out, in the same way that they dominate their domestic leagues. How on earth is a team in the SPL supposed to compete with these sides? Even just from a financial point of view, on Tuesday night you have someone like Rio Ferdinand who is on 100K a week. What's our top player on now, 15K or so? Its incredible.

 

At a time when we our country is going to lose our automatic CL place and people have been complaining about the amount of foreigners in the game, I cannot believe that a Rangers team packed full of Scots getting a draw at OT isn't being celebrated.

 

Rant over

[MoodyBlue 0]

:me:

 

though he was outstanding in the 2nd half. He broke up the play time and time again

 

agreed. did some sterling work in there. many may not have noticed, but his positioning, ability to break up play and his judgement on tackles was first rate IMO.

[Gribz 743]

It was a strange game though and its interesting to see people's feedback as its a bit like the Scotland game in Lithuania where you read someone's comments about a player and wonder if it was the same game they were watching. The whole team did an amazing job. If I was being picky though, I thought Edu and Davis gave the ball away a lot in the first half

 

 

Yip agreed, i thought Edu had a nightmare in patches especially in the first half. His simple passing was non existant. McCulloch did a 2 man job IMO.