Motherwell Post-mortem ââ?¬â?? Another 2 Crucial Points Dropped

[CammyF 6,775]

Carrying on from Frankie’s brilliantly written and though provoking article, Rangers FC, A House Of Cards - http://www.gersnetonline.net/vb/showthread.php?t=8803 I thought that I would add to the dreachness of the morning by trying to establish why or club appear to be determined to hand the SPL title to Celtc. As I said in my rants early in the week, we are consistently inconsistent and I can’t remember a time where I have been as frustrated at our form as I am at this moment. Sure there have been times when we have been worse than this, there is no doubting this, but the frustration comes about having witnessed this squad dismantle Celtc at Parkhead, Hibs at Easter Road whilst playing a brand of football synonymous with Rangers Football Club. Then we have had to endure the dross served up at Love Street, Falkirk Stadium and last night at Fir Park.

 

Once again last night we started with little urgency thus allowing our opponents to settle into the game and dictate the pace and flow of the game. Motherwell are a physical team and were quite happy with the ball being leathered from one corner of Fir Park to another. That is their strength, and it is also our weakness. We are outnumbered, out-muscled and more worryingly, out-played on the midfield area for the entire 90 minutes last night. We played to Motherwell’s strengths and had no-one either in the dug-out or on the pitch who had the capacity to change our tactics and play to our strengths. There has been a trend recently where when we are struggling to impose ourselves in games that we revert to the high ball / long ball game. This plays right into the hands of the opposition. 2 towering centre halves (the prerequisite for SPL teams these days), backed up with physical full-backs and tough tackling midfield players, lap this up. What they don’t like is football being played round about them. So instead of dominating games, establishing our pace, footballing ability, we get dragging into a war of attrition and inevitably drop points.

 

So how is to blame for this trend? The players have to take their share of the responsibilities, but the management team appear to lack the leadership required to ensure that we can start a game with the necessary urgency to stamp our authority on proceedings. I understand that we have no divine right to win any game, we have to earn the right to win games and titles. However, I believe as we have been weakened on the pitch, teams in the SPL are no longer intimidated whilst playing Rangers. In our prime, we carried an aura with us – we weren’t invincible, but teams knew when they played Rangers, we are capable of destroying them playing football, but had the players who could and would stand up to a physical battle. Ian Ferguson, Stuart McCall, Nigel Spackman, Graham Roberts, Richard Gough, Terry Butcher, John Brown, Mark Hateley – all fantastic football players, but also players who wouldn’t be frightened to go toe-to-toe with anyone of the nature of the game demanded it. Those type of players won their battles and allowed players like Gazza, Laudrup, Walters, Wilkins, McCoist, et al to then play the football that would win us the games. Quite simply, we don’t have that mix at the moment, and clearly, we don’t have that quality at our disposal either.

 

Currently, we are deploying 4 centre-halves in our back four. Our midfield consists of 3 centre midfield players and a front man pitched in for good measure. Our front two try hard and have differing qualities, but to be honest, neither of them score the crucial goals that win you games like last night on a consistent enough basis. We have played the majority of this season with absolutely no width in the team. Opposition managers know this and use it to there advantage, There were times last night where you could have thrown a blanked over our 11 players, they were so narrow and so close together. Walter Smith has another frustrating trait – his use of substitutions. Firstly, some are mind-boggling in the extreme and almost all of them are never a simple ‘straight swap’. Take last night as an example – Novo for Lafferty – looked like the correct move at the time (maybe 5 or 10 minutes later than expected, but the correct move none-the-less). Anyway, on comes Novo to play wide left? No, Novo moves into the centre, Miller moved out left?

 

In saying that, the above deficiencies, whilst being glaring, are not unfixable. Compare them to the gross incompetence of the officials and they pail into insignificance (however, they are the only deficiencies that we have complete control over). The standards of refereeing and assistant refereeing in the SPL this season have been disgraceful bordering on the corrupt. It is safe to say that we have fallen foul to at least one controversial / crucial decision in almost everyone of our SPL games this season (another perfectly good goal wrongly chopped of last night) and at the same time, Celtc have been the beneficiaries of at least one controversial and crucial in almost everyone of their SPL games. I don’t think that the above statement sounds paranoid, as there are facts, pictures, video footage et al to back these claims up. So what can be done about these? Well, our club could be doing a better job in highlighting these decisions. We hear / see every other SPL manager (and in Celtc’s case, Chairman et al) banging on about all the decisions that go against them, so why not us? Well, I’ll tell you why not us, our Chairman doesn’t care. Ask him for a quote about the big, bad Rangers fans singing songs, or posting on websites and its ‘pens and Dictaphones at the ready’, I’ll give you enough to fill a 100 papers. Ask him to defend us, or challenge officials who are bordering on the corrupt? Silence is golden in Murray Towers.

 

So, in conclusion, have we thrown away the league title this early in the season? Well, on current form, it’s impossible to believe that we can go to places like Tannidice, Tynecastle (both loaming large on the horizon), Pittodrie et al and gaining 3 points. It’s hard to see where Celtc are going to drop points. We are looking at an OF game at Xmas that could see us a trailing them by 4 points (at least) and stacks enormous pressure on us to deliver a performance and a result. Lose that game and it could be all over bar the shouting. Where does that leave Walter and his staff? Well, losing a 4th consecutive league title would be catastrophic, and I’d like to believe that it would mean (yet another) change in manager. Tough times ahead folks and we must no witness leadership from the top – are we going to get it? As is the case with Mr Murray’s last decade in charge at Ibrox, we are left with more questions than answers.

 

Cammy F

[Frankie 8,145]

Thanks for that mate...

 

The last sentence sums it up and there's no doubt it's extremely difficult to be a Rangers fan right now. For periods in games we look the part then for whatever reason fail to win.

 

I can live with that happening occasionally. But it happens far too often and we won't win titles unless we fix it.

[gisabeer 409]

The blame for me lies firmly at the door of Walter Smith. I personally would have sacked him after the disgrace in the CL qualifiers.

 

I could write a book about my complaints about smith, but right now im too bloody livid.

 

The answer is simple. get rid of him.