MARK Warburton has been urged to rethink his “risky” tactics if he wants Rangers to bounce back from their Old Firm drubbing by Celtic and flourish in the Ladbrokes Premiership this season.
The Ibrox club was thrashed 5-1 at Parkhead last weekend to fall four points behind the Scottish title holders - who still have a game in hand to play - in the top flight table after just five matches.
The pressure is well and truly on Warburton and his players as they enter back-to-back league games against Ross County at home on Saturday afternoon and Aberdeen away at Pittodrie on Sunday week.
Read more: SFA chief Regan calls on Scottish football to act after Old Firm "misbehaviour"
Neale Cooper, the former Rangers midfielder and Ross County manager, has backed the League Cup champions to give the Championship winners a difficult match in what is their first ever visit to Ibrox this weekend.
Jim McIntyre’s team are currently in fourth place in the Premiership table just a point behind their opponents after winning two and drawing one of their opening five games and can leap-frog their hosts with a victory.
Read more: Hogmanay clash between Rangers and Celtic confirmed with early kick-off
Cooper has been impressed with the stylish attacking football which Rangers have produced since Warburton took charge last year – but thinks he may need to adopt a more pragmatic approach during the 2016/17 campaign.
The Englishman has stubbornly refused to deviate from his game plan and revert to a Route One style of play throughout his time in Scotland – and famously remarked last term that his “Plan B is doing Plan A better”.
“I like the way the manager gets this Rangers team to play,” said Cooper. “No doubt about it, he gets them playing good football. I like the passing and movement of the side. But sometimes they do take risks coming out from the back with the ball.
“When I first saw them last season I thought: ‘Oh, this is a bit risky!’ Sometimes his players will take a wee chance. But it worked well for him last season and worked well for him when he was at Brentford in England.
“But the way Rangers play is risky. When you are asking your goalkeeper to chip the ball to the full back you are taking chances. If it comes off, fantastic. But if it doesn’t you are in trouble. Maybe the game against Celtic at the weekend was a lesson for them.
“Maybe he has to stand back and say: ‘Wait a minute. In the Premiership we are up against better and sharper players’. There may be occasions and matches where he has to alter what he is doing."
Cooper added: “All good teams have to change when they play certain teams. When I was at Aberdeen Fergie (Sir Alex Ferguson) didn’t send us out to play Greenock Morton the same way he sent us out to play Rangers. He was clever that way.
“We could certainly play football when we needed to, but when teams didn’t expect it we would change it. We just went out and won the battle. At times, that is exactly what is required.”
The former European Cup Winners’ Cup winner, meanwhile, has stated that the senior players at Ibrox, the likes of Joey Barton, Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace, must assume responsibility for getting Rangers back to winning ways following the loss to Celtic.
Read more: Scott Brown - Celtic's display in Barcelona was unacceptable
Barton, the former Newcastle United, Manchester City and Marseille player, has failed to live up to expectations since moving to Glasgow in the summer and was anonymous during the one-sided encounter last weekend.
Cooper, though, believes he has a key role to play in the wake of the heavy loss to their city rivals and has to try and lift the likes of Andy Halliday, Barrie McKay, Wes Foderingham and Josh Windass.
“I am sure Joey will be hurting,” he said. “He has got to stand up and be counted. The older players have got to perform. He is a good professional. With his age and experience, he is the kind of player you are looking to pick things up in training. He must take responsibility for more than performing on match days.
“I knew I was going to Rangers as a squad player when I joined. But I still couldn’t believe the size of the club when I went there and didn’t appreciate just what it meant to people until I got there. It is massive.
“We had leaders throughout the team. You couldn’t have asked for any better. Richard Gough, Terry Butcher, Ray Wilkins, Mark Hateley, Chris Woods and John Brown were all there. They would pick up on things we did wrong in a game at the very next training session and take an active role in turning things around.
“Joey Barton is a quality professional. He will be hurting and will want to put things right. He is a confident guy and will. But he doesn’t just have to perform, he has to lead the younger players by example.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel