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Rangers captain says start to season not good enough but insists players are behind boss and will put things right
In the eight Premiership matches he has now overseen at Ibrox since becoming Rangers manager in March, Pedro Caixinha has won only three of them.
That bleak statistic, in a nutshell, explains why the Portuguese coach is struggling so badly to persuade the club’s support he is capable of effecting the kind of on-field improvement they so desperately crave at the club.
Even this early in his first full season in the job, that battle for credibility among a group of fans who packed out the Govan ground for a second successive Saturday may be one which Caixinha has already lost.
On the back of the 3-2 defeat by Hibernian seven days earlier, this grim and unsuccessful toil to try and break down a robust and tactically disciplined Hearts side did little to suggest the revamped squad assembled by Caixinha during the summer will prove to be a significant upgrade on the group of players he inherited from Mark Warburton.
Five points off the pace being set at the top of the Premiership by Celtic, St Johnstone and Aberdeen after just three games of the campaign, Rangers are engaged in another game of catch-up which they appear ill-equipped to pursue.
It is an unwelcome but familiar scenario for their captain Lee Wallace to face before August is even out, but the left-back did his best to relay a positive message on Saturday night.
“You hope everything in your game evolves week to week,” said Wallace. “We wanted to get back to scoring goals today, we wanted to eradicate last week’s result, albeit the circumstances changed what went on in that game against Hibs.
“We wanted to get back scoring goals in front of our fans and recapture the momentum that we made just prior to the Hibs game. But we will be looking to learn and look forward and be better next week for the game at Ross County.
“We would have been looking for a far better start to the season, especially now we have had two home games back to back. We have only got one point from that. We demand high standards but, at the same time, it is not a disaster for us. We recognise it is not the start we wanted, but we are going to be working hard to put that right and the only way to do that is to get back training and trying to make things better. Hopefully, we can regain that momentum that I spoke about.
“We are just disappointed in the fact that there is that gap at the top of the table and we have not started the way that we wanted to. Every single game that we go into we want to win and we haven’t done that in the last two weeks.
“That is the overriding feeling in that dressing room, nothing else regarding the manager. We are fully behind what is going on here. We as players need to recognise that we need to start kicking on and regaining that momentum.”
Playing in front of a demanding crowd at Ibrox brings its own pressures, as does facing opponents as defensively determined as Hearts were under Jon Daly’s impressive guidance. Wallace accepts those
“Every single game that we go into we want to win and we haven’t done that in the last two weeks. That is the overriding feeling in that dressing room, nothing else regarding the manager”
LEE WALLACE
are challenges which Rangers’ new signings must quickly learn to grasp.
“We have always got pressure on us in every single game, whether it is a friendly game or a league game,” he added. “It is something that the new guys coming into the team knew about and it is certainly something that we feel. But that just goes with the territory. For me, irrespective of any pressure that they put on us or any restlessness during games, they are the best
fans out there. It is a privilege to play in front of them every week, home or away. As a player and as players down in that dressing room we are proud to represent that. But, equally, we are very disappointed when we are not sending them home with a win.
“We are trying to be adaptable in games. The manager is adaptable. Even last year you saw there were a number of formation changes and a number of personnel changes at early times in games, earlier than normal. We as players have got to recognise that. We do a lot of work during the week so it doesn’t come as a surprise at three o’clock on a Saturday that Hearts are suddenly playing a low block. We knew that, we were aware of that.
“Our invention when we were arriving in the final third probably could have been a lot better. That last pass, that bit of intricate play in or around the box, a more aggressive approach to playing forward passes instead of sideways passes that allow the block to get set and make it harder to get through them and mean we have to recycle and it is slow; maybe those are details we need to be better at. A number of teams will come here, barring the obvious teams, and set up in that fashion. It is something we need to learn as players, to be sure.”
While Rangers experienced only frustration, Hearts could take great satisfaction from another valuable point during their early season exile from Tynecastle. Inspired by captain Christophe Berra, ably assisted in central defence by John Souttar, they blunted Rangers with relative comfort for most of the afternoon.
“The big man [Berra] has been good for me,” said 20-year-old Souttar. “I’ve learned a lot from him in his short time here since he came back to the club. I thought we were comfortable at Ibrox but it’s a big pitch and it’s always tough. Rangers are a good side with good ball players and good movement.wewantedtomaybe play better but we defended well and got a clean sheet. Overall, it’s a good result and a good point.”