Ibrox keeps singing blues
Warburton’s men booed off after stalemate, reports Graeme Macpherson
RANGERS’ failure to win for the fourth time in six league games this season had little to do with the absence of Joey Barton, but they have reached a point where they can ill afford any additional and unnecessary distractions. For all the noises made in-house at Ibrox in the summer that this was a squad sufficiently stocked to immediately challenge Celtic’s domestic supremacy, the evidence continues to stack up to the contrary.
They have won only twice, scored just seven goals in their six Premiership matches, and continue to preside over a negative goal difference. They created sufficient chances to beat Ross County on what was the Highlanders’ first ever visit to Ibrox but failed to take any of them, a consequence of both poor finishing and dogged defending.
The end result sees Rangers slip to fourth place in the Premiership table, already adrift of a Celtic side who can extend that gap further this afternoon. Manager Mark Warburton felt this had been the best 90 minutes from Rangers this season but the boos that echoed around Ibrox at full time gave an indicator of how a great number of supporters felt about the state of affairs.
Rangers were much brighter and more positive than they had been in the Old Firm game the previous weekend – in fairness, the bar had been set fairly low – but still could not eke out the victory they so badly craved. Some of that was down to their own wasteful finishing, the rest to some spirited County defending and excellent goalkeeping from Scott Fox. One instinctive stop, as he plunged to keep out a Josh Windass volley from a corner, was particularly impressive and with 77 minutes gone, it began to feel like this wasn’t going to be Rangers’ day. Even when Fox was beaten – as he was from a header by substitute Michael O’Halloran – the crossbar came to County’s rescue. Next for Rangers in the league is only the small matter of a trip to Pittodrie to play Aberdeen next Sunday.
Before then, however, they have a Betfred Cup quarter-final tie at home to Queen of the South on Tuesday night and it remains to be seen whether Barton will return to the fray for that one. Wherever he was yesterday – perhaps on a golf course, or preparing for the launch of his autobiography later this week – his ears would have been burning given how often his name cropped up in conversation around Ibrox. County manager Jim McIntyre succinctly described the events of the past week – Barton’s training-ground spats with both Andy Halliday and Warburton, his half-hearted Twitter apology, and subsequent radio broadcast – as “a circus”, but felt that the commotion had actually made his team’s job harder.
Barton’s absence seemed initially to work in Rangers’ favour, their build-up play more purposeful without the requirement for every move to start with the former Burnley man taking the ball from his centre halves’ toes. There was a first league start of the season for Jason Holt and a big pre-match cheer for Halliday, perhaps an indication that many in the Rangers’ support have elected to align themselves with him rather than Barton in this whole stooshie. Like his manager, Holt would not be drawn into commenting about the training-ground affair but insisted there was no split inside the Rangers camp. “There’s a togetherness there,” he declared.
A victory would have eased the tension both inside and outside the Ibrox camp but Rangers could not deliver. County, set up in a rigid 4-4-2 formation designed to allow them to play on the break, weathered the storm to claim what McIntyre later described as “a good point”. He had to do without Liam Boyce, named Player of the Month earlier in the day, due to a back spasm and could only name six substitutes on the bench. They did not offer much of an attacking threat, although they did fashion two of the best chances of the game, with Wes Foderingham having to save twice – once in each half – from the everdangerous Alex Schalk, who would later hobble off with what his manager feared was medial ligament damage. But a defence constructed to exasperate did exactly that.
“We were set up to be hard to break through, to be frustrating and try and counter-attack and play on the break,” added the manager. “That is the one side of
We were set up to be hard to break through, to be frustrating and try and counter-attack
the game that we didn’t do as well as we can – we never threatened enough. But the boys were magnificent. They gave me everything and you could see their desire, throwing their bodies on the line.”
Rangers will look back on a litany of chances that came and went. Windass, impressive again as the most forward-thinking of a central midfield three, had an early strike ruled out for offside, and then perhaps should have done better minutes later after rounding Fox only to see Paul Quinn clear his goalbound but tame shot. Lee Wallace then advanced before sending a cross right across the penalty box that opposite full-back James Tavernier couldn’t poke in at the back post.
If anything Rangers’ chances were more clear-cut in the second half and it seemed inevitable that they would score at least once. But they didn’t. On top of O’Halloran’s header against the bar and the Windass volley, Clint Hill had a header nodded off the line while Fox also made a terrific block to push away a Martyn Waghorn drive. A first clean sheet in the league this season seemed like scant consolation.