More dropped points – the chase is on

[Frankie 8,146]

http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/news-category/match-analysis/535-more-dropped-points-the-chase-is-on

 

Disappointing results on the park at Rangers are nothing new in recent years. As such, when we do drop points in games, I usually enjoy an internet break to take stock as there's a tendency for people to overreact. Indeed, as I now read through the inevitable backlash to Saturday's draw with Livingston, I think a few more fans could do with copying my strategy.

 

First of all, of course we played pretty poorly on Saturday. Quite simply, despite having the usual vast majority of possession and creating two or three excellent opportunities, a combination of bad luck and poor finishing once again resulted in just the one goal. Add in some sloppy defending (especially from our midfield) then we always ran the risk of conceding a goal and it doesn't matter how good the strike was, we gave the ball away cheaply and passed the buck when it came to retrieving it. There's no coincidence several goals have come from outside our box and it is frustrating lessons are clearly not being learned in that respect.

 

That being said, it’s not a surprise to see the manager – perhaps for the first time – taking some strong criticism over the last couple of days. After all, Mark Warburton is constantly at pains to talk about he’s only ever really interested in what our team do so it must be a source of great concern to him that we continually leak goals from long range. And who is going to take responsibility for this flaw? Is it the defence who fail to close down shots in time or is the midfield who often lose the ball and don’t track back quickly enough? Generally it’s fine to say we don’t worry about opposition teams but if we’re not doing our job properly then they don’t have to worry about us either.

 

In fact, as we struggle more and more to break down teams, that’s perhaps more of an issue than the concession of the odd goal. The reason being that we’ve gone from playing at a high tempo in the early season to taking too long on the ball now. Yes, we still have fleeting glimpses of the fast football that ensured some impressive results throughout August and September but it’s fair to say in recent weeks, those glimpses are becoming rarer. This is mainly down to opposition sides sitting deep with two banks of four which causes us to come across the pitch more than being able to get down each wing and in behind teams.

In turn, this restricts the threat of our full backs while the likes of McKay and Oduwa also have minimal space to operate in. This means we have to recycle possession more which slows down our play – nullifying the pace of our quicker players and making it difficult to create chances as we labour on the ball. It’s no coincidence that a more central player like Holt has become a vital component in our attacking play.

 

Clearly all this means when we do create chances we have to take them and unfortunately this is where we’ve also toiled in recent weeks. Yes we had a fine 4-0 win against Alloa at Ibrox a fortnight ago but aside from that, games have been much tighter affairs throughout the last eight weeks or so. We can also point to some bad luck: we’ve hit the woodwork time after time in many games while opposition ‘keepers have made some fantastic saves but, by and large, the finishing has been questionable and certainly worthy of criticism.

 

Obviously our main striker Martyn Waghorn has had a fine début season so far so it’s difficult to criticise him too much but, when he does have an ineffectual game, the lack of an alternative is a worry. Kenny Miller was recently given a new contract and high praise from Warburton but he’s not scored since August and there’s not many fans that are confident in his finishing ability. Our other options are Nicky Clark and Ryan Hardie and neither player seems able to get into the team to warrant genuine appraisal. Is this a lack of faith from the coaching staff and, if so, what happens if Waghorn does pick up an injury?

 

Generally speaking our squad is of reasonable quality and at 23 players (including the continually injured Bell and Templeton) has the kind of numbers Warburton prefers to ensure genuine competition for places. That’s fine but of the ‘deputy’ players we do have, most remain unproven. Yes, guys like Wilson, Law, Shiels, Aird and Clark have all featured fairly regularly in recent years (for Rangers and Hearts) but none have truly proven themselves reliable. Add in youngsters like Kelly, Thompson and Hardie then there are some valid doubts over squad depth and experience. Ergo, it’s no wonder the manager has spoken of adding to it in January. The problem is that January is still almost six weeks away and after we play a resurgent Hibs at Ibrox; not to mention tough games away to Raith and Falkirk.

 

In saying that, it’s only fair to highlight the progress the existing squad have been making this season. We’re only six months into the Mark Warburton era and we’ve only dropped points in two league games. By anyone’s standards that deserves credit and an unlucky defeat against Hibs and a careless draw away to Livingston shouldn’t detract from the forward strides we’ve made this campaign. However, such goodwill will only go so far if the team drops any more points. With that in mind, the manager also has to be careful in how he addresses the issues that have cropped up lately. It’s all well and good to say he’s not worried about other teams challenging and, yes, most fans are enjoying the open, attacking football he bases his vision on but, sometimes, Plan A will only work for so long and, occasionally you do have to take the opposition into account when looking to win games. Ultimately there’s a fine line between confidence and complacency.

 

All things considered, it might appear asinine to be overly critical of a team top of the table and managed so well in a general sense. However, as much as some criticism has been over the top since Saturday, it would be equally foolish not to acknowledge the flaws that have appeared of late. As such the tough winter schedule ahead of us will be a true test of not only the players and manager’s mettle but also the regime in the boardroom who will undoubtedly need to release the funds they’ve previously promised to ensure a Championship title come next spring. Warburton will play it down of course but, make no mistake, the pressure is on. He and his players must absorb this and welcome the chase with open arms.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Frankie

[Chibmark 15]

Credit to Hibernian who have put in a superb run themselves of late which has made this Championship season very competitive thus far.

[Waltersgotstyle 297]

I'd like to know where the Scottish papers get their stats - The Sunday Mail had us with 51% possession.

 

Sky sports - 69%.

 

Bizarre....

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

After last season's lack of goals from our strikers it was utter madness to think we could rely on Miller or Clark to get goals alongside Waghorn.

One if not two strikers with proven scoring records will be needed in January if we're to be guaranteed of getting promotion either via play-offs or as champions

[chilledbear 16]

I said in August, playing with the 3 up front, they all must chip in with goals. I suggested wide players like Jamie Murphy and Johnny Russell who are equally adept at coming inside and scoring as playing on the wing.( I said like, probably were/are too expensive.)

 

McKay has been terrific this season but like the Spurs loanee, is never going to score many goals. If Waghorn is going to be kept in the middle then I would try someone like Law or Sheils in one of the wide areas.There is the other scenario of buying a striker and playing Waghorn on the right, I would then loan Hardie out to gain experience.

[JobearGer 0]

The Tempo that we played at in early Season, is what tore teams apart, sure most team play most of the game with either 10 men behind the ball, or 2 banks of four, but the higher tempo is a great tool for eradicating either of these systems, especially if our wingers and full backs stay wide, play round blanket defences and hit the bye line.

 

I well remember my early years supporting Rangers, when we had proper wingers, like Scott, Wilson and Henderson, most of our goals came from the bye line.

 

Alternatively MW and SDoW should be drumming in to our Midfielders that they should try shooting on sight, obviously our standard of football( compared to the last three Seasons) has risen exponentially, but football is all about goals and we need to start taking a much higher percentage of the chances we are making.

 

As for Gedion Zelalem, the lad is an awesome talent, but rather than playing keep ball, with simple passes all the time, he has to start playing a few killer passes, passes that actually take defenders out of the picture.

The only player we have, who seems capable of this, is Barrie McKay.

 

I am delighted with our progress under MW and SDoW, but if we had taken our chances against Hivs, we would have been 11 points clear, instead we are ahead on goal difference, albeit with a game in hand, now we must start to exert our authority and pull away, or at least start winning games again and stay in front

[limeburner 0]

We have been in ascending order--Tremendous, good, average, poor,shite.

On Saturday(mostly in the second half we were shite----albeit for the first time imo) I stated this on Saturday night and i stand by it.

I was accused of "panicking",---I was only giving my opinion as i saw it.

Perhaps i shouldnt have said shite,i should have tempered my comment and said "rubbish".

[craig 5,195]

Part of the reason for our ascending form that you state Limeburner is also down to the opposition. If you look at it.... we were horrendous last year so when this year started, despite a new manager and plethora of new players, everyone we played thought it would be "the same old shite Rangers" so we initially were being given the freedom of the pitch as teams felt they could simply run at us and beat us. Once they saw just how good we could be if they gave us space they then tempered their own aggressiveness towards us by playing fewer men forward and being less expansive. That resulted in us still winning games, albeit not quite so freely. Opponents then realized that this wasn't working either so they then moved to putting 10 men behind the ball and hoping to hit us on the counter, a move which has proven more successful

 

So we have seen the following from our opposition in ascending order :

 

1. Expansive, going at Rangers as it is "the same shite Rangers as the previous year"

2. Less expansive but still having a go

3. Even less expansive, hitting on the counter

4. Park the bus, 10 men behind the ball, hope for a lucky goal

 

I don't disagree with your analysis of how we have gone from the sublime to the (relatively) poor. My point is that it has been a combination of us not playing as fluently and our opponents realizing that they cant go "toe-to-toe" with us so have reverted to 10 behind the ball.

 

The issue is that, having now witnessed opponents use this park the bus mentality (interesting that the media will call it "brave" when they happily coined Messi's "anti-football" statement when it was us a few years ago), we haven't found a way of dealing with the park the bus mentality. However, we shouldn't also lose sight of the fact that we are still creating enough chances to win all of these games, we just haven't been clinical enough.

 

I'm not concerned though. Hibs are on an excellent run of form but even in the game they beat us I felt we deserved no less than a draw and thought in the 2nd half we were far superior and if anyone was to win the game, it should have been us. I don't think they will maintain that form. We are going through a sticky patch but I'm not concerned about it.

 

Assuming we win our game in hand we will be 3 points clear having played almost half the season. We will have dropped 5 points, collecting 40 from a possible 45. We are absolutely miles ahead of the team we had last year in just a few short months having spent almost no money (Templeton cost us as much as Warburton spent on all his players.....), there will be money made available in January to strengthen too.

 

Where I think the "panic" is coming from is that we have been so poor for so long that we Rangers fans almost expect the wheels to fall off because we have become accustomed to failure (self-inflicted or otherwise). I'm also not overly concerned because I think we are being a little unfair on Hibs. I think that they are a very decent team. Much as though I don't like Stubbs I think he has assembled a fair team. In fact, I think both us AND Hibs will go up. I think both are good enough at present to be a top 6 SPL team.

[MacK1950 2,231]

What worries me is the repetitive rhetoric coming after the games that it will be analysed and corrected by the next game it sounds like a replayed recording.

As I said in another post plan "B" is urgently needed.

On Saturday I started to get a deja vue complex as iI felt some of the previous seasons were coming back to haunt us in fact I said to my son with fifteen minutes left I would not be surprised to see Livi score again.

I have been a big admirer of our Manager and Coach but something team-wise has to be changed or it could be play-offs again.

[compo 6,116]

If we keep our cool we will win the school , what we need is our own shoot to kill policy lets see our players have a buzz at goal a little more often and maybe a poacher would be handy ,but I think we will all agree its a dam sight better than what we had to endure last season ,MON THE GERS