Cammy F's Weekly Rant

[CammyF 6,779]

Away Day Blues

 

Whilst the result at Tannidice wasn’t really a surprise, the manner in which we conceded two goals in three minutes, was the most predictable aspect of the game. Once again we entered a tricky away fixture with absolutely no width in the team and allowed the opposition unchallenged runs from the halfway line to our 18 yard line then confound this error by allowing crosses to be thrown along our six yard line. In know it’s an old, lame joke, but McGregor must be a vampire as he is scared of crosses. He is rooted to his line and every team in Scotland now knows how to trouble us defensively – get men out wide, deliver into the box and cause mayhem.

 

We actually started well on Saturday and took control of the game and should have been two or three up before halftime. Boyd took his goal well but unfortunately for us, Miller chose Saturday to display his worst performance since his return. Hard to overly criticise Miller as he has bone well since his return, and in fairness, he looked like he was carrying an injury on Saturday. Finally, Mendes and Ferguson gave us a glimpse of the partnership that can develop between them, but when DUFC changed their tactics after the break, they were overrun (again) in the midfield area and worryingly, Walter Smith appears not to notice when we are being overrun in that area and is slow to react to opposition changes in tactics, formation etc.

 

Having a look back on our away record for the last calendar year, it makes terrible and tragic reading. Since Last Christmas we have thrown away numerous critical points away from Ibrox and this ‘form’ resulted in us throwing away last seasons SPL title and it appears that we haven’t learned for this harsh lesson. It is getting harder and harder to imagine where a Rangers away victory is going to come. Is it fair to say that we are incapable of playing away from home in the SPL? Sure we can point to outstanding victories away from Ibrox in the last year – 4 v 2 at Torbett Towers, 4-0 at Tynecastle, 3-0 at Easter Road – but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.

 

We can all point to gross incompetence from officials, especially this season, but lets be honest, our level of consistency and performance has been sadly lacking. We are easily beaten – we are easy to play against – we are easy opposition. We are lacking in the basics – we can’t retain possession from a throw-in – we can’t defend crosses into our area – we can’t capitalise on our attacking set-plays – and we can’t kill teams off when we get into the lead. These failures aren’t new, they have been around since the PLG era (not blaming PLG here by the way). They just haven’t been addressed properly.

 

We now have two massive games at Ibrox and nothing less than six points will suffice form these games. Hibernian and Glasgow Hibernian are the next two visitors and will have had us watched and will have witnessed our weaknesses and know that we are venerable. We must counter this by playing to our strengths. However, I fear that our manager will see these games, well the OF game in particular as ‘must not lose’ rather than ‘must win’. Given this, I fully expect us to approach these games with an air of caution. This will mean our ‘flair players’ will be reigned in and / or replaced by McCulloch, Adam et al. If we defeat Hibs on Saturday (no mere certainty) then I will be shocked if WS doesn’t revert to 4-5-1 against the MOPES. This actually wouldn’t be the worst move against them, however, it will depend on the personnel deployed by WS. He’ll go with a midfield five of Davis, Mendes, Ferguson, Adam and McCulloch with Boyd as the ‘target man’ and we’ll spend the entire 90 minutes throwing aimless (and hopeless) balls up to Boyd that will be food and drink to the Ork-like MOPES defence.

 

If we played with Ferguson, Mendes and Davis as a tight three man midfield and then played Novo and Lafferty (or Beasley or Aaron) wide supporting Miller then in my opinion, we would destroy them. Their defence is immobile and struggles against pace and skill. I know many won’t be happy with Boyd being dropped, but if we revert to 4-5-1, then he has to be the one that misses out. 4-4-2 would also work against both Hibs and the Mopes, but within that 4-4-2 there MUST be a wide player with genuine pace that can deliver quality into the box.

 

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

 

During my time as a Rangers supporter I have seen a change in myself and others when it comes to being optimistic about the Rangers. In the early to mid 80’s when I first started going regularly, you knew Rangers were going to struggle, but you always held the belief that one day, all this would change and the Rangers would once again become the driving and dominant force of Scottish Football. Call this naivety of youth, but when going to watch Rangers in those days, there was a genuine feeling and belief that it would turn around (or maybe it’s just the romanticism of the mists of time playing tricks with me).

 

And it did turn around – David Holmes had a vision and managed to persuade Graeme Souness to become manager of the Rangers. After a sticky start, we eventually won the league (and the league cup for good measure) and all those long hard days going to witness Rangers struggling at Love Street, Boghead, Fir Park et al (sounding familiar), not only seemed worth it, but appeared to be a million years away.

 

Suddenly, the Rangers were once again the team to beat. We were the Champions and we are ready for all comers. Nothing appeared to be going to go wrong and we started to edge closer and closer to 9-in-a-row. Added to the excitement of reaching, and hopefully surpassing this achievement was the news that our greatest foes and bitter of bitterest rivals were in financial turmoil and couldn’t match us on or off the pitch. It was around this time that I think we all took our eye off the ball – we all dwelt on the MOPES misfortune and none of us could see the trouble that was just over the horizon. In fact, it would be fair to say that any pessimism from Bears was met with derision. By Christ, I wish I had listened to those fellows sooner than I did, and I wish that ALL of us had taken heed of them ‘doom and gloom’ message.

 

When I finally realised that our Custodian wasn’t all he was cracked up to be and that not everything in the Rangers garden was rosy, those ‘doom merchants’ were a vast minority. Just like today, the custodian had cast his spell and the majority of us were taken in by his rhetoric, half-truths and promises of moon-beans and the like.

 

More recently, I believe that the majority of Rangers fans have woken up to the harsh reality that we are broke, we are rotten from the top to the bottom, but the vast majority still believe that the man who has gotten us into this mire, is the man who will actually save us. This is an unbelievable situation to be in. We all finally admit to SDM being capable for our demise yet the vast majority still harbour images of SDM riding over the horizon on his white charger galloping to our rescue. When in the cold light of day, nothing can be further from the truth.

 

The January sales are looming large on the horizon and WS has publicly stated that we must move on 10 players. Adam, Burke, Beasley, McCulloch, Daily, JCD et al have all been mentioned, but realistically, who is going to buy those players from us? Who is going to match their current wages? The stark realism here is that we will have to create money at some point this season to compensate for the European failure. Christ, we got to the CL group stages and then to the UEFA Cup Final last season and still made a loss (even adding in the sale of Hutton to Spurs).

 

So in conclusion, for this Bear, it has become almost impossible to have an optimistic view on Rangers at the moment. There is no feeling that better times are ahead, and the recent good times -2 last minute SPL title victories and a UEFA Cup Final -whilst being welcome have been smokescreens and have just severed to paper over the cracks and offer false hope. The only positive being a Ranger at the moment? At least we're not one of them......

 

Go on SDM, prove this old pessimistic so-and-so wrong.

 

Cammy F -

Edited December 16, 2008 by CammyF

[Gribz 743]

If we played with Ferguson, Mendes and Davis as a tight three man midfield and then played Novo and Lafferty (or Beasley or Aaron) wide supporting Miller then in my opinion, we would destroy them. Their defence is immobile and struggles against pace and skill. I know many won�t be happy with Boyd being dropped, but if we revert to 4-5-1, then he has to be the one that misses out. 4-4-2 would also work against both Hibs and the Mopes, but within that 4-4-2 there MUST be a wide player with genuine pace that can deliver quality into the box.

 

Couldnt agree more that we would destroy them. I said last week that we should push Davis inside one for the Utd game. If we do go 4-5-1 then Novo and Aaron have to play the wide roles IMO.

 

However Im not so sure WS will go 4-5-1 as we pretty much went 4-4-2 in the first OF game with Davis, Thomson, Mendes and Adam in midfield and Miller and Cousin upfront - and we battered them. With Miller and Boyd playing well i could see him keeping the same, they only shout for a change is due to Ferguson and Mendes not clicking yet.

 

Lets get Hibs out the way first then see if everyone comes through injury free.