STEVIE WEE WALKS TALL
Rangers gaffer rams size slurs down rivals’ Croats KAT AND NOUS GAME
HE was derided by the Croats before the game as a tiny man but Steven Gerrard is building a team that is ready to stand tall for Rangers.
The Light Blues took a significant stride to self-respect under the reign of their new boss with a performance that fell short of towering but still scaled heights the Ibrox fans haven’t seen for the last six years.
The loss of an equaliser a minute from time, when Borna Barisic became the first player this season to breach their goal, caused a nervous four minutes of injury time they should never have suffered.
Central defender Nikola Katic ultimately put his countrymen to the sword with the game’s decisive goal seven minutes into the second half as they won through to the third qualifying round against Maribor.
Rangers remain a work in progress, particularly middle to front when they were again wasteful when they should have made their passage to face the Slovenians more comfortable.
However there was an aggression and energy to their performance that has found favour with Rangers fans.
Connor Goldson, Katic and Allan McGregor provided a solid defensive spine, while Alfredo Morelos showed an appetite up front he must maintain if he’s to fulfil his potential and justify an eight-figure transfer value.
Yet it was a player Rangers took for nothing last summer, Ryan Jack, who was most eye-catching as he prowled the midfield with intent and purpose and ultimately built a platform on which others could build.
Ibrox crackled with nerves and anticipation as the capacity crowd heeded the pre-match call from Gerrard to raise the roof.
Rangers almost gave themselves a dream start inside three minutes when Lassana Coulibaly rose unchallenged to connect with a Ryan Kent corner but knocked his volley over the top from eight yards.
Jon Flanagan almost played Jack into trouble, while playmaker Ovie Ejaria was a couple of passes off it in the final third as the Croats set about matching the intensity of their rivals.
Barisic dispossessed Coulibaly and freed Haris Hajradinovic to fire over.
Rangers rallied and a long pass from Jack picked out Morelos, who darted in behind the Croats’ rearguard.
His low right-foot effort was pushed away by Marko Malenica and when the ball was recycled on the left, the keeper dived to his other side to push away Daniel Candeias’s left-foot strike.
Ejaria was dispossessed in the centre circle after 18 minutes and Robert Mudrazija was sent racing clear on the right but McGregor came out to narrow the angle and force him to fire a shot against the keeper’s chest.
Jack and Morelos were each given sight of goal midway through the first half but their efforts were straight at Malenica and on the counter the Croats had potential to cause panic.
It needed a stunning double stop from McGregor to preserve his side’s first-leg advantage as half-time approached. Nigerian frontman Ezekiel Henty dug out a shot from just inside the box that was heading for the top corner before McGregor dived at full stretch to claw it to his left.
He then leapt to his feet and pushed the follow-up from Petar Bockaj into the side net. Whatever Gerrard said
at half-time he got an immediate response as Rangers scored the vital opener after 53 minutes.
Ejaria was upended on the lefthand side and in soggy conditions Malenica made something of a hash of it as he tried to deal with Tavernier’s in-swinging delivery.
He punched little more than thin air and when the ball dropped to Morelos at the back post he knocked it back into the six-yard box where Katic rose highest to nod it into the net.
Morelos almost ended the tie as a contest on 75 minutes when Ejaria robbed the Croats and played in the striker but he fired into the side net.
Osijek equalised on 89 minutes. McGregor again kept out a Mudrazija effort but when the ball was played back across the box it was met by Barisic, who thundered a left-foot shot through the defence to set up an unsettling four minutes of injury time.