Frustration is the biggest overriding feeling at the moment, not at getting beat but the manner in which we contrived to beat ourselves essentially
Have saw a lot of knee jerk criticism for the manager but in my humble opinion he was bang on tactically and our offensive play was spot on. So essentially the set up and game plan should have worked perfectly if the players he trusted had performed, sadly they didn’t
The management have assembled this squad for the best part of around £7 million pound net, so there needs to be some reality to that. Our opposition have spent millions more and only narrowly beat us
But of course it’s raw and obviously it’s frustrating in the manner of the defeat but it doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom. The manager has questions to answer on his selections going forward however, some players are badly out of form
So looking at the game the biggest disappointment was that every goal we lost came from slack passing, individual errors or a collective of both. They were completely unnecessary and completely avoidable
The first a failure to stop the cross, then Candeias was sleeping and allowed his marker a free header. The second a sloppy turn over in the middle from Ejaria and Flanagan caught square, to far from his cb and Goldson simply made a horrible error trying to clear with his right foot
The third we had it twice in the left back position and failed to clear then subsequently gave up possession to have two players having unmarked efforts in the 6 yard box. The fourth another horrible turnover from the middle and we allowed the player a free run and deflected finish summed up our night at that point
What was just as disappointing was our lack of response, credit to Moscow they responded whilst we simply stood and felt sorry for ourselves. Instead of rolling up our sleeves we simply huffed and puffed our way around until hitting woodwork on 92mins. I have no doubts that if we had played with that desire for the final 20mins we could have snatched an equaliser
The manager again left it too late to change it and must now consider how he once again assembles a spine of the team, gels his defence and lifts the players who are currently not performing. That’s the problem we have, when we play we are a very decent side as results and spells in games have shown. However when we don’t we aren’t good enough to carry those that don’t perform
Last night was uncharacteristic of our side defensively to ship that many goals and have that many individual errors. It’s probably fair to say With this team, when we are good, we are good – when we are bad, we are bad!
As for Europe it’s been a fantastic run and we are still very much in this group. A win against Villarreal may very well qualify Rangers from our group if last nights opponents Moscow win their final two games, which they will have to do, or at very least win and avoid defeat to Villarreal – that will be enough for us
So it is still very much all to play for and not doom and gloom
We have a tendency amongst our support to be either world beaters or absolutely horrendous. Unfortunately we were a bit of both all rolled into one. But those ranting about how bad we were and how the manager is this and that need to consider the facts. We beat ourselves through sloppy moments of madness, it wasn’t the management or tactics
It’s a tough one, emotions are running high and constructive criticism is allowed. But in context it’s all very much to play for. It’s fine margins, we were unlucky with Alfredo’s effort and that’s the margins we are talking about. We have come a very long way in a short space of time to be so bitterly disappointed with that result
We can still qualify from this group if we are able to stand up and be counted, Villarreal will be huge and it’s up to us to make Ibrox as loud as possible
The big games keep on coming for us and it’s on to Motherwell on Sunday. We need a reaction from the players and perhaps also the manager in his team selection. A win will end this segment of games with ten pts out of twelve domestically as we return to a much harder run into December which will shape so much of our season
With December so vital we have to hope we spark into life once more and are still in the mix come January when we will bring in reinforcements to the squad. This was never going to be a one window quick fix so we have to stick with it even when it’s as frustrating as last night
As a work in progress we are still very much in the mix both at home and in Europe, there is much more to come from this team especially when you consider we have still to hit top form
We can do that and these players can respond starting Sunday
It’s all to play for
Ignore the nonsense, the irrelevant and the noise 🔴⚪️🔵
Four Lads Had A Dream 