By David Herd
MATCHES NEXT WEEK:
LIVINGSTON V RANGERS PREMIERSHIP SUN 28 SEPTEMBER 15:00
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STURM GRAZ V RANGERS EUROPA LEAGUE THU 02 OCTOBER 20:00
Welcome to the latest edition of the website’s weekly preview feature.
Saturday’ win over Hibs was a welcome positive result after so many dreadful lows in the weeks before. But reality revisited Ibrox last night, when a limited Belgian team currently sitting in the relegation places in their league won by a single goal but could easily have scored three or four more.
Before, and during, the Hibs match we saw various protests and banners. The Head Coach and the CEO were firmly in the sights of a large section of the crowd, but a victory on the pitch seemed to have temporarily given both a tiny sliver of respite. There seems little doubt that Genk’s comfortable win will be the signal for those voices of protest to get louder. And no wonder, just look at the evidence mounting up in favour of those demanding change.
Four wins from 14 games, with five defeats. No wins in five league matches. The last four European games have all ended in defeat, one of them by a record margin. Eleventh place in the league table, already nine points behind the leaders. Failed to score in three of the last four home games. Rangers fans are watching as bad a team as there has ever been in the top flight, with absolutely no prospect of getting remotely close to being good enough for the demands and expectations of our club. There are no “bad losers” or leaders, there is no semblance of tactical awareness, there is zero attractive football. And the man in charge of the team sits telling us how it will all come good.
I can’t decide if he is suffering from delusion, or whether he just thinks we are all daft. Going by the pitiful attendance of under 38,000 last night, more and more have seen through the charade and have had enough. Ibrox is having the energy and the passion sucked out of it, and that unique atmosphere isn’t returning until we see the end of this failed experiment. Rangers aren’t an exercise in philosophy, and will never be a project. Our new owners have got their first big decision horrendously wrong, and every day they fail to recognise what is staring us all in the face is another day closer to them losing the goodwill and backing that we all want to give them.
The problems go higher than Russell Martin – the club’s entire potential-based recruitment strategy and wish to go down the Head Coach route simply does not work at a club that needs to win week after week and lift trophies year after year. But, the first decision that must be made has to be removing the man whose tactics and footballing approach will never work, and who is destroying the season before it has properly even started. The worst thing to do after making a mistake is refusing to put it right. The appointment of Martin was every bit as big a mistake as many feared. We can’t delay the inevitable any longer.
PREDICTION TIME
LIVINGSTON 0 RANGERS 1
Our league position is perhaps the biggest embarrassment of all in a season full of humiliation. And if any team fancies getting tore into this weak and insipid Rangers team it will be Davie Martindale’s Livingston. On their plastic pitch, they will be committed, organised, physical, and show no respect. Exactly the type of opponent this current group of players will likely fold against.
The one positive I will try to come up with is that Livi aren’t renowned for scoring loads of goals. In fact, I suspect this could be one of those games that has 0-0 written all over it from the start, with few chances and little football on show. I might be being overly optimistic, but I have a feeling we might sneak a first league win by being marginally less hopeless than an opponent who finished last season as second in the Championship. A late Miovski goal to earn a first win is predicted. Heart has overruled head!
STURM GRAZ 2 RANGERS 0
I confess to knowing virtually nothing about our Austrian opponents, other than remembering our Champions League matches back in the Advocaat days, and knowing they were in the Champions League last season but found it just a level too high. They were Austrian champions last season, finishing above the likes of RB Salzburg and Rapid Vienna, but like Rangers they failed to get through the play-off round for the biggest European competition this summer. While we were being humbled by Brugge, they were losing to Bodo/Glimt, who beat them 5-0 in Norway.
Like Rangers, they lost their opening fixture in the Europa league phase and will be desperate to get points on the board. Unlike Rangers, they do look as if they score goals now and again, and that’s why I think another European defeat is on the way. I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t see us creating much, and I don’t trust us to keep them out.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Jack Butland played well last night, saving a penalty. But the player of the week has to be Nico Raskin, despite having an ineffectual match against Genk. He was by far the best player on the pitch against Hibs, and showed exactly why so many fans were furious at the Head Coach for banishing him when we had crucial fixtures to play. I don’t think by any means Raskin was blameless in the whole affair, but it’s looking pretty certain that he will outlast Martin at the club, and when that happens I’m hoping we get to see the best of the Belgian midfielder on a more consistent basis. He remains by some distance the best midfielder at Ibrox.