Football News: Current State of Glasgow Rangers

Gave myself a couple of days after Saturday's [Celtic v Rangers] Old Firm (OF) match to think things through fully before writing this, though I suspect much of my thoughts have been covered already.

I said on Friday I wasn't confident in getting a result, I thought it needed us to play well and them to play badly. Neither happened. Butland showed his quality again. Davies, to be fair, had an ok game for being out so long. He could have done better at the first goal, but ultimately he was trying to make up for Silva dropping his runner (O'Riley) and Lundstrum watching their most dangerous player wander into scoring position.

Sterling did well in two positions again. Not content with potentially being our best RB, RW and CDM, he made a play in the second half for being our best CB as well. We need to pick a position for him either CDM or RB IMO and build around him. Ridvan did ok as well when he came on.

Outside of that, woeful to a man. Lundstrum will rightly shoulder a lot of the blame for his stupid red card. A tackle that had zero upside and didn't need to be made. He also played a big part in their first goal and scored their second, though the main fault for that, again, was Tavernier, our captain.

His defending is so amateur at times. A ball travels 60 yards, he watches it. Watches Celtic's Maeda take a difficult touch, doesn't press the touch, doesn't press him at all. Shows him into the box and lets the cross come in. If that were an 18 year old inexperienced fullback, you'd have so many coaching points to make, but a 32-year-old club captain can't be making those mistakes over and over again, especially in these games.

When you look back over the OF games so far this season, Tavernier has had a hand in us dropping points in all of them with his woeful defending. If we go into next season with him as right back, we're in real trouble. If we go in with him as captain, then the same fate will befall Philippe Clement (PC) that has befallen the two managers who came before him.

In the end, 2-1 flattered us hugely. Even with 11 v 11 it was shooty in at times and I never felt at any stage like we were in with a chance of winning the game. From the first minute when Forrest ran at Barisic and he shat it, again, the tone was set and I always felt that as soon as they scored they'd add more. The second half they could and should have done.

They are, despite fervent objection from much of our support, a million miles ahead of us. We are, season after season, repeating the same mistakes in terms of personnel and expecting a different outcome.

Since getting back into the Scottish Premiership in 2017, we have 2 cups and 1 league title to our name. 3 trophies from 23 domestic trophies available (one to come). In that time Celtic have won 18 with 1 to play for. We've only bettered St Johnstone by 1 trophy, a league in which Celtic imploded while going for 10 league titles in a row. They've won 12 of the last 13 league titles now and next season they will have a chance to surpass Rangers' overall number of titles won.

I'm afraid anyone who thinks there's not much between the clubs, or the teams at this stage is delusional. We basically need a whole new team to be able to even have a chance of competing. With the exception of Butland, who ironically may well leave in the summer as well as Sterling.

And for the "PC did amazing to get us closer" argument; We were 7 points behind in the league when he took over as manager, now we're 6 behind. He could yet leave us further away than Michael Beale and his run of 8 points from 21 available since the end of March is worse than any run Beale or Giovanni van Bronckhorst put together.

PC needs time to get his own team in the door, I'm not suggesting he should be at risk at this stage, but the honeymoon period is well and truly over. He needs to make some big decisions and he needs funds we arguably don't have to build a team capable of challenging.

But he has to shoulder the perfectly valid criticism coming his way. For example, his, "won't be the last stop" build up for Diomande has more than a shade of Beale's, "next level" commentary for Cifuentes. Diomande has looked decent (no more) against lesser teams, but he cost us the tie versus Benfica and has now looked like a lost boy in two games against Celtic. He's really struggled up against good quality opposition. And he cost us a lot more than Cifuentes to perform just as poorly in big games.

Big summer coming, but I'm not sure we have the funds to be able to do it in one go, so I find myself hoping we can just get a little bit closer next season. Laying any sort of glove on them would be that.

Written by gdog55 May 13 2024 14:47:18