pete 2,499 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 (edited) I think I can safely say that most Rangers supporters will be saying thank heavens the international weekend has come and gone and we can get back to the nitty gritty of club football again. Well I may have to retract that as most club supporters are probably unhappy that it comes around in the first place. Personally I prefer the old Wednesday night International games keeping the weekends for club football but with UEFA announcing a new International league system starting next season I would imagine that ship has sailed it's last voyage. Unfortunately the Scottish world cup battleship never reached the Russian mainland but sunk as quick as the Titanic in the waters off Slovania. In a recent documentary over the Titanic, evidence was brought forward that the damage to the Titanic was actually caused by a fire in a boiler at the beginning of the voyage. It had started before the ship docked in Belfast arriving from Liverpool. With the boiler still on fire the Captain thought it would burn itself out and and made the catastrophic decision to set sail towards America. Instead of the fire burning out it spread to the other boilers making the ship unstoppable and speeding towards an iceberg. Someone had ordered sub-standard rivets to build the ship and they were further weakened by the fire causing the unsinkable ship to sink. Funny enough, Scotland's European journey had the same ingredients. The irrepairable damage was done early on in the journey. Despite the ship listing to one side Captain Strachan decided to sail on. The ship got up to full speed and then the rivets were torn out of the hull by the Ice cool Slovanians. Even a valiant final effort from the crew failed to save the sinking ship. Lets hope that Captain Strachan decided to go down with the ship and not do a Francesco Schettino jumping the Costa Concordia and decide to save himself from the wreckage. Meanwhile back at Auchenhowie Pedro Caixinha has had the Rangers team back into dry dock. According to himself he has been giving the the whole defensive system a total refurbishment. While Rangers have been scoring and creating chances some of the goals the team has been giving away have been pretty amateurish mistakes. In modern day football the defence includes the whole team. Defending starts from the front as they say. Many coaches these days work on a five second changeover. That means when a team lose the ball they should be pressing to win the ball back within five seconds. I have even heard some coaches try and make it a three second changeover but these type of players are not in Rangers price range at the moment. In my eyes this is a big difference between Celtic and Rangers at this moment. If you see the speed they close down the opposition, normally with three players around the ball. it does make us look like light years behind them. Mark Warburton certainly had one thing correct and that was when he said " if we have the ball the opposition can't score." Unfortunately he preferred ball possession and rotation rather than Caixinha's quicker and more dangerous transition from defence to attack. In Warburton's slow build up we kept hitting our heads against an opposition wall as they had plenty of time to retreat. It looks like Rangers have been working on this as Caixinha stated in his pre-match interview for our game against St Johnstone on Friday night. He said that we have to stop St Johnstone playing the way they want. As they are likely to play with five players in midfield with a lone striker up front. That would mean to me to close down their midfield quickly in the opposition half isolating their striker. That scenario would of course be perfect conditions for Michael o'Halloran but as he is on loan from us he will be left out for this game. Pedro said in his interview that all players are starting to get fit so injury problems are starting to improve with only Lee Wallace still a long way away. I would imagine that it is far too early for Kranjcar and Rossiter to play any role in the team just yet. I fully expect two changes from the 4-1 win at Hamilton with Alves returning to the heart of the defence and I also expect Jason Holt to come into the midfield to replace the suspended Ryan Jack. Pedro seems to have kissed and made up with Kenny Miller but I think the best King Kenny can expect is a place warming the dugout bench. I think the team will be: One thing we have learned from Alves's absence is that we have an excellent deputy in young Ross McCrorie and he can really hold his head up high at how he has performed. He really came in and excelled. I cannot see Pedro keeping Alves out of the team just yet but our defenders now know that their Alpha male status could be in danger if they are caught wanting as they now have a young challenger lurking in the background. This could be an extremely difficult and tight game but hopefully we can pull out all the stops and it will be Rangers floating nearer to the top of the league and Tommy Wright's men left lying adrift in our wake. C'mon the Gers!!! Edited October 12, 2017 by pete 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davie P 4 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Excellent review Pete, really enjoyed reading that. PS. Unless there are any unexpected injuries I agree that the team shown above will be the starting 11 on Friday night. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,185 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Excellent stuff mate - many thanks! 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tannochsidebear 2,321 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Is there any chance McCrorie will be retained and Fabio "Kiernan" Cardoso will be dropped? To me McCrorie has played better in his couple of games than Cardoso has to date. I would like to see how McCrorie plays with the experienced Alves talking him through the game. Not sure if McCrorie can play as comfortably on the right side of centre as I havent seen enough of him, and pretty sure Cardoso will play but what do my fellow Gersnetter Bears think? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tannochsidebear 2,321 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 I would still like to see a Morelos Herrera partnership given a chance. We dont need Windass and Candieas both putting crosses into the stand, one is enough, so perhaps we can find a way to get two good attacking players into the side and see if a partnership can develop? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,185 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 I think McCrorie has played right back previously so may actually be better on that side of central defence. He wasn't quite as good at Hamilton (though neither was Cardoso) so I'd expect at least one to drop out in favour of Alves - who has hardly been as commanding as we'd like either. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
onevision 1,454 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Great review Pete. I agree that this will probably be the starting line-up but also would like to see young McCrorie replace Cardoso. You may well see Millar replace Windass wide left although would prefer someone else replace. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,185 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 Can't see Miller starting as supposedly he's carrying a knock. He may well make the bench again though. Holt and Alves for Jack and McCrorie from the same team the started against Hamilton. There may well be a slight change is system though. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,289 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 (edited) On hindsight - and after watching it again - you have to say that Hamilton's pitch was a joke. Hence the hectic scenes at times, which had hardly much to do with a controlled game. All Accies did was lumping the ball into our half and hoping that their quick attackers get lucky with the ball bouncing about and our "new" players not coping with the pitch and their style. Hence, I wouldn't blame either Cardoso or McCrorie for anything, apart fom the tactical error that had our whole centre of defence exposed after 50 secs. After Jack went off, I thought that Dorrans controlled his space/game better. Which might be a plus if he has Holt next to him, who is pacy as well as more attack-minded than Jack. It really does depend on how St. Johnstone will set themselves up. They are not up there without a reason and sure know how to play teams that dominates possession. Hence, our full-backs and CHs should be wary, as should be Dorrans. You'd hope we score early, so Saints have to open up a little. As I said before, I wouldn't mind having Morelos occupying the left attacking slot and Herrera being the target man up front, so he can lay off long balls to Pena, Morelos and Candeias. Edited October 12, 2017 by der Berliner 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,289 Posted October 12, 2017 Share Posted October 12, 2017 NB: Neither Richard Foster (suspended) nor Michael O'Halloran (not available due to the league's loan rules) will play against us tomorrow evening. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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