RANGERS were very poor against Hearts the other night and the time has come for Mark Warburton to demonstrate some tactical flexibility if his side are to move ahead of the pack to finish second this season.
Warburton has always stuck to his principles and insisted that he won’t deviate from playing in a style that he thinks is the right one. He believes in his philosophy and so won’t change it for any occasion or opposition.
That’s admirable to an extent but it also means Rangers have become very predictable. Opposition sides have got them figured out and know how to counter it and that could prove hugely damaging for Rangers the longer the season wears on.
Read more: Andy Halliday: Rangers players have to get their "fingers out" to rediscover best form
They need to at least work on a Plan B in training. At Tynecastle they were forced to go long by a Hearts side that pressed their defence high up the pitch, giving them no time to make passes from the back, and who showed greater appetite in midfield just as Partick Thistle did last weekend. When Rangers did go back to front the ball simply didn’t stick. Joe Dodoo isn’t the kind of striker who can link the play but, to be fair to him, he was so detached from his midfield anyway that even if he had got in possession there wouldn’t have been a pass on for him.
So it wasn’t really a surprise that Rangers created very little until the closing stages when they were already 2-0 down. They have to come up with a viable alternative, especially for the matches against the better sides like Celtic, Aberdeen and Hearts – the three teams who have beaten them in the league this season. Aberdeen are the visitors at Ibrox tomorrow and you can be sure they are going to lock on to the Rangers defence high up the pitch and not allow them to pass the ball out from the back.
Read more: Andy Halliday: Rangers players have to get their "fingers out" to rediscover best form
That could force Rangers to go long which they can’t really do well as it’s not something they’ve worked on. It isn’t pretty and maybe isn’t something Warburton believes in but in certain situations it can be an effective insurance policy. I’d be going through shape and talking about how they adjust their system if things aren’t going their way. I’d be telling them this is the Plan B in case we need to use it and here’s how it works. Maybe during a game they could switch to a 4-4-2, miss out the midfield and look to pick up second balls. But the evidence suggests that Warburton is set in his ways when it comes to setting out his team and you have to wonder if that could prove costly to Rangers in the long run.
There are no surprises about them now. Preparing to face Rangers is the easiest bit of analysis the opposition will ever have to do as there are never any changes; the full-backs like to bomb on, the wide men tuck in so the full-backs can overlap, the front players rotate, and the main striker comes short so they can get midfield runners in behind. And then when they get caught up the park, the back four isn’t in a great position to cope with the counter as we saw at Hearts’ second goal the other night. Every team knows that’s a weakness and plays on it, exploiting the gap between the full-back and the centre half. The whole thing has become too predictable for me.
Rangers have also been let down this season by too many players not reaching the levels they showed last year. Barrie McKay, Martyn Waghorn, Andy Halliday, Lee Wallace and James Tavernier – all key figures in the Championship-winning side – have not made the same contribution this term.
You also have to question the recruitment in the summer. Central defence was highlighted as a problem area early on and it has still not been resolved. As much as Clint Hill has done okay, I thought they needed to sign someone with real pace. Given the way they play they need someone quick enough to mop up when their full-backs are caught up the pitch. But they didn’t sign a fast centre half which I thought was glaringly obvious.
Read more: Andy Halliday: Rangers players have to get their "fingers out" to rediscover best form
I also felt they needed an out-and-out winger to supply crosses for Joe Garner, something they don’t really have at the club. It would give them something different, rather than their wide men just drifting in the pitch as tends to happen at the moment. So that’s another area that ought to have been addressed.
It’s going to be a hell of a job now for Rangers to even finish second this season, and with their budget that is not an unreasonable expectation. Their performance levels are going to have to improve so much for them to achieve that. The next two games at home to Aberdeen and then Hearts will give us a clearer indication of whether they are capable of stepping it up another level and showing greater flexibility as and when required.
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