Points paper over cracks

Caixinha’s charges secure victory through Garner and McKay but performance does not convince

EVEN when Rangers are winning games these days, they fail to convince entirely.

Pedro Caixinha’s side may, thanks to an early Joe Garner goal and a second-half Barrie McKay strike, have triumphed 2-1 for the second time in the space of six days at Ibrox yesterday, but has the painful memory of their successive defeats to Celtic been erased by either this victory over Hearts or the one against Partick Thistle last weekend? Not really.

Have their last two performances and results persuaded supporters Caixinha is the right man to revive their fortunes? It is doubtful.

Ian Cathro’s side, pipped to fourth place in the Ladbrokes Premiership table and the final Europa League qualifying spot by St Johnstone as a consequence of this defeat, were reduced to 10 men in the 26th minute when Prince Buaben was red carded for a foul on Josh Windass.

Rangers, leading 1-0 at that point in proceedings, should have capitalised on their numerical advantage and killed off their opponents. But if anything, the visitors arguably enjoyed the better of proceedings thereafter.

Cathro switched to a 3-4-2 formation and his team, for whom Don Cowie was once again outstanding in central midfield, dominated long spells of the match. They levelled in the 51st minute through Esmael Goncalves.

The capital club may only have been on level terms for little more than a minute before McKay was the beneficiary of some poor play by goalkeeper Viktor Noring, given the chance to show what he can do ahead of Jack Hamilton, and netted. A draw, though, wouldn’t have flattered them.

Noring did well to deny Garner, Clint Hill and Toral with decent saves, but his opposite number Wes Foderingham was also called on to produce some vital blocks, most notably from Cowie and Bjorn Johnsen. There was little between the two sides.

Caixinha didn’t attempt to disguise his disappointment at how his charges acquitted themselves. You sense he is looking forward to the end of the season and to bringing in his own personnel.

“Since we arrived, we have lost 70 per cent of the second balls and today we did it again,” he said. “Hearts won the challenges and pushed us back. We could not cope with that. We tried to change things in the second half, telling the boys to play with the same intensity, pace and anger that we showed in the first half. We didn’t do that.”

Cathro said: “I have mixed feelings. Of course, there’s disappointment at the outcome. But there were a lot of positives. I am today even more convinced that we will be a very good team.”

Rangers had snatched an unlikely victory at Firhill six days earlier when Kenny Miller had set up Garner for a goal in the fourth minute of injury time.

The same two players combined in the sixth minute yesterday to give the home team an early lead. Miller was released down the right flank by James Tavernier and he supplied Garner at the far post. The striker met the cross with a diving header which left Noring with no chance.

Hearts’ chances of levelling suffered a serious setback when Buaben was ordered off by referee Bobby Madden for fouling Windass after the midfielder had been sent clean through by Garner.

But Cathro replaced Malaury Martin with Alexandros Tziolis at half-time and changed formation and his team were soon controlling much of the play. They equalised with a fine counter-attacking move.

Windass lost possession needlessly and Cowie advanced upfield before feeding Johnsen. He squared to Goncalves inside him and the forward had the simplest of tasks to side-foot the ball into the net.

But it didn’t take long for Rangers to restore their lead. Noring punched a Tavernier cross high into the air and it fell to the feet of McKay when it came down. The winger drilled it into the bottom-left corner of goal.

Clint Hill, who is one of three Rangers players who has been told by Caixinha that he will not be getting kept on beyond the summer, worked tirelessly for the 90 minutes and was named Man of the Match at the end.

Since we arrived, we have lost 70 per cent of the second balls and today we did it again