Rangers’ reality CZECH? Doig cut from same cloth as Robertson
With scalps including Leicester and a win over Leverkusen, Slavia will be no walkover
RANGERS have been drawn against Slavia Prague in the last-16 of the Europa League, with Steven Gerrard’s side traveling to the Czech Republic for the first leg on Thursday March 11 before welcoming the Czechs back at Ibrox the following week.
But just who are Slavia Prague, and how worried should fans of the Premiership leaders be? Here, we cast our beady eye over Rangers’ next European opponents.
How did they reach the last16?
In impressive fashion, it has to be said. Any Rangers fans who felt relief wash over them after their club dodged heavyhitters like Ajax or AC Milan are about to be brought back down to earth rather abruptly. Apologies in advance.
Slavia Prague were knocked out of this year’s Champions League qualifiers at the play-off stage by Midtjylland. Remember them? Rangers blitzed past the Danes 7-3 on aggregate during last season’s Europa League qualifiers. Maybe this Czech mob aren’t all they’re cracked up to be?
Sadly not, Rangers fans. A glance at their record in European record this term suggests that Midtjylland tie is little more than an aberration. Home and away victories over Nice in the group stage were just that, while the games against Hapoel Be’er Sheva – the Israeli side that eliminated Motherwell in the preliminary rounds – were more finely balanced. Away from home, Slavia Prague lost 3-1 but in the reverse fixture, they won 3-0.
They also managed a 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen at home – you know, the same Bayer Leverkusen who breezed past Rangers back in August – albeit with the help of Karim Bellarabi’s 18th-minute dismissal for the visitors. Over in Germany, Leverkusen exacted their revenge and won 4-0.
That meant Slavia had to settle for second spot and a tie with Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City in the last 32. They held them to a goalless draw in Prague before secondhalf goals from Lukas Provod and Abdallah Sima at the King Power Stadium sent them through to the next round.
How are they getting on domestically?
Pretty well, by all accounts. Slavia Prague are 20 games into the Czech domestic season and they’ve opened up an eight-point gap with their cross-city rivals, Sparta. They also happen to be unbeaten in the league this season and boast a goal difference of +46. Not shabby at all.
They battered their rivals 3-0 when the two sides last met back in December and while recent draws against Pribram and Teplice – two sides mired in a relegation dogfight – will be a concern to manager Jindrich Trpisovsky, they appear to be on track for a third consecutive championship crown.
Do they have European pedigree?
You betcha. They’ve never made it beyond the semi-final stage but have a long history of going deep in European competitions. In 1996, they reached the final four of the UEFA Cup before losing out 2-0 to Bordeaux and they made it to the quarter-finals of the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1998, where they were eliminated by Stuttgart.
More recently, Slavia Prague reached the last eight of the Europa League in the 2018/19 campaign, knocking out perennial winners Sevilla along the way, before losing out narrowly to Chelsea in a 5-3 thriller.
Last season, Slavia qualified for the group stage of the Champions League for the first time since 2007 but finished bottom of a group containing Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan with two points.
Who are their key players?
Goalkeeper Ondrej Kolar is a big player for the Czechs. He’s kept 16 clean sheets in 30 appearances this season. Remarkably, he even has a goal to his name – he converted a penalty in a 3-0 win over Pribram back in August.
In midfield, winger Lukas Provod is a player who will have to be watched closely. He’s got five goals and 10 assists in 27 appearances this season, while Romanian playmaker Nicolae Stanciu
is another with the ability to make things happen, with five goals and six assists to his name.
Up front, the forwards Jan Kutcha and Abdallah Sima will provide the greatest threat to Rangers. The former is a 24-year-old centre-forward who tends to play at the tip of the Slavia Prague attack, while the latter is a 19-year-old who generally plays on the right wing. Kutcha has 13 goals and six assists in 25 games this season, while Sima has 15 goals and five assists in 23.
Do they have any weaknesses?
Of course they do! When we take a look at Slavia Prague’s under-the-hood stats like expected goals (xG), we can see an issue straight away. Of the 56 teams to have competed in the Europa League this season, there are only seven who have a lower xG per shot than the Czechs. What this essentially means is that they don’t create a lot of highquality chances. The shots they hit, on average, have a low probability of going in.
Going by the xG, Slavia are overperforming in front of goal in Europe this season – as are Rangers, we should add – while at the other end of the park, they’re shipping more goals than they reasonably ought to (again, as are Rangers). That means that their forwards are likely to be potent in front of goal but don’t be surprised if we see a mistake or two at the other end either.
Goals from Lukas Provod and Abdallah Sima at the King Power sent them through
JOSH Doig admits he has aspirations of following in Scotland captain Andy Robertson’s path to the top after signing a new long-term deal at Hibernian.
The similarities between the pair do not just end with both Doig and Robertson being left-backs. Like Liverpool’s swashbuckling defender, Doig suffered a career defining set-back at a young age, the 18-year-old being told by Hearts in 2019 that he was not good enough.
One-time Celtic trainee Robertson’s journey towards Champions League and Premier League glory with the Reds got properly going at Queen’s Park.
Doig got his first taste of professional football with the Spiders on loan from Hibs last season, a spell that laid the foundations for this term’s impressive breakthrough campaign at Easter Road.
After signing a new deal that ties him to the Leith club until summer 2025 yesterday, Doig, who has previously been linked with Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, has candidly spoken about his personal targets.
“I like watching the two Scottish lads, [Arsenal’s] Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson,” said Doig, who is
set to make his 24th appearance of the season in today’s visit of Motherwell. “Being Scottish they are a massive inspiration.
“I watch the two of them as much I can and try to base my game on them because they are such attacking left-backs and also aggressive in the defensive sense.
“Seeing where they both came from, with Andy Robertson at Queen’s Park, like me, at the start – that gives me hope.
“You hear that a lot, that players bounce back after being released.
“When I was released I did fall out of love with football and it was my mum and dad who picked me up and told me to trust that I was good enough.
“Thank God I listened and stuck at it. Look at where I am now and I want to keep pushing forward.”
Doig’s maturity on the ball and eloquence off the pitch belie his tender years.
However, head coach Jack Ross admits he likes the fact that the teenager still feels compelled to ask if he can clock off following a day’s work at their East Mains training base.
Ross, who also tied down midfielder Joe Newell on a new deal until summer 2023 on Tuesday, said: “Around the club this season has been unusual because we’re in our own first team bubble so we don’t have development players in the building.
“Josh still carries out a number of duties to help us because there are a lot less people in the training ground.
“He still makes sure the balls are ready in the morning and still has other ground staff duties to do.
“He still comes and asks my staff if he can leave, which is good.
“I think that will continue, that’s testament to how my staff interact with him and how he is as a young man.
“That keeps him grounded as well and I’m sure there will become a time in the future when he will decide when he wants to leave but at the moment he chaps on the coaching staff’s door to make sure it’s OK.”
CELTIC’S frailties at set pieces this season have proved costly and were to blame for them losing 1-0 to Ross County up in Dingwall on Sunday in what proved to be Neil Lennon’s final match as manager.
But Scott Brown, who was one of those who failed to deal with the Harry Paton free-kick that Jordan White headed home in the second half of the Premiership game in the Highlands, had little difficulty leaping to the defence of John Kennedy yesterday.
Kennedy, who was put in temporary charge of the first team until the end of the 2020/21 campaign on Wednesday, has been savaged by some supporters this season as a result of the Parkhead club’s dire displays at the back.
The former Scotland centrehalf is one of the contenders to replace Lennon on a permanent basis this summer. After their woeful campaign, the prospect of him taking over isn’t an appealing one for many fans. They believe it is time for a complete clearout and change of direction.
Brown, though, feels the criticism of the assistant has been completely unjustified. He is happy his compatriot has stepped up and filled the considerable void left by the man who secured the quadruple treble back in December.
He is confident the 37-yearold, who helped to bring through Kieran Tierney (inset) during his time as a youth coach at Lennoxtown, has all the qualities and knowledge needed to become a top manager in the future. “We’re lucky that John is still here as he knows all the lads inside out,” the club captain said. “He’s been here long enough so he knows what the club is all about. He’s been taking a lot of the training sessions anyway. “It’s easy enough for everyone to get behind him. We’ve got to try and focus and get results again. That’s what John wants us to try and do. It’s not about him or anybody else. It’s about us altogether.
“When everything isn’t going so well it is always everyone’s fault. There is always a lot of blaming. But John has been fantastic for this club since I came here as a player and a staff member. His training is brilliant as is his dedication to the club.
“He is in here until eight o’clock most nights and he is working on all sorts of things. He has that drive to become a top-quality manager and coach and he has been showing that week in, week out with Brendan [Rodgers] and Neil, both of whom put a lot of faith and a lot of trust in him.”
Brown added: “As a coach, John is the one I look up to. He sits and studies football, whether it is any league in the world. He watches players, shapes and styles and tries to take the positives out of any situation.
“He is fantastic with the kids coming through, but he has also been fantastic with the first-team players that have come through under Brendan and Neil. There are a lot of players out there who will be thanking John and Neil for pretty much everything that they have done.
“John has brought a lot of the young players through. He has nurtured them and he produced Kieran who is probably one of the best left backs in the world right now, to be perfectly honest. He has helped every single person at this club over the last eight or nine years that I have known him.”
Brown revealed that Kennedy has been responsible for more than just the Celtic defence since becoming assistant and stressed that he and all of his team mates must accept full responsibility for the goals they have conceded at home and abroad.
“It is easy enough just because he was a defender as a coach to blame him for the set-plays,” he said. “John is not just a defensive coach. John takes attacking set-plays, shooting drills, he takes the midfielders, he takes defenders, he takes the strikers, he does everything.
“You can’t just give him the defensive one. We have to take the brunt for that. People can put you in shape because it is the players who need to defend the ball, head the ball and clear the ball.”
Brown is currently in the process of completing his coaching qualifications and is keen to move into that side of the game when he retires from playing. His current contract expires at the end of May and he turns 36 in June. Will he make the switch this summer? Or will he wait until the new manager is confirmed and then decide after talking to him?
“I am not 100-per-cent sure if I am honest,” he said. “I take it one game at a time and go
with the flow. I spoke to Peter [Lawwell, chief executive] about the situation a couple of days ago as well and he says he it is completely and utterly up to myself whether I want to stay or go into a coaching role.
“As it stands now I am here to support John and to try to help the lads as much as I possibly can and see what happens. I’ll see if I am still playing and take it from there at the end of the season.
“It is not that long until the end of the season and it would be a bit premature now to say that I wanted to dive in or say that I wanted to a coaching role. For me it is about trying to play for as long as I can, trying to keep myself happy and fit.”
When he does finally take the plunge and go into management, Scott Brown knows that he will be doing well to enjoy the same success that Neil Lennon has.
“You’ve got to try and look at the positives of every manager and player who comes into the club,” he said. “With everyone, there’s always going to be ups and downs and little speed bumps along the way. That’s football and it’s not always going to be plain sailing. What the manager has given the football club is a lot of trophies as a player and a manager.”