A weakness in defence is Warburton’s main issue

SAYS ANDREW DAVIES

OPEN at the back, susceptible to high pressing, always likely to give the opposition a chance. Not nearly as solid as either Aberdeen or Hearts.

If Ross County captain Andrew Davies’ assessment is to be believed, Rangers have a number of problems to overcome if they’re going to challenge for second place in the Premiership.

Davies, who brushed aside claims that Clint Hill had been blocked off for the home skipper’s goal from a corner, explained that County — despite sitting bottom of the table — had gone into yesterday’s game believing they could rattle Rangers.

‘I believe that Rangers have got some good flair players, they’ve got some players who can really attack,’ said Davies. ‘Defensively, the way they organise themselves, I think they’re open.

‘When you look at Aberdeen and Hearts, they’re very solid — not open. With Rangers, they give you chances. Against good teams, they’ll get punished. We should have punished them more today — but we didn’t. That’s where I rank them.

‘They keep trying to pass their way out. That’s how their manager wants them to play. But it’s risk football. They are taking risks in bad areas of the pitch. That’s how it looked.

‘Some teams sit off them and they’ve looked really good. Obviously they’ve got fantastic players. But are they good enough to deal with the ball under that sort of pressure?

‘I feel that, defensively, you can get at them, I really do. They have got some really good players when going forward, but you have got to be really careful. I think that their weakest point is at the back. ‘If our final ball or final shot had been just that little bit better today, I don’t see why we couldn’t have won the game 2-1 or 3-1. It was a good performance from the boys. I am really proud of them.’ On Mark Warburton’s claim that Hill had been blocked off for the equaliser, Davies (below) said: ‘That’s corners. You’ve got to say that, for his goal, I’ve got to be stronger — and when I score he’s got to be stronger. ‘If someone tries to block you, you’ve got to move him out of the way. If I get blocked, I always look at myself and say I should’ve been stronger. ‘Look, at the end of the day he is an experienced player, he is good in the air, you saw that with his goal. I just need to make sure that I got one back on him — which I did. ‘The manager does a lot of work on set-plays and how to free me up. I feel I am quite strong in the air and good at attacking corners. It is kind of freeing me up and we work on them week in, week out, on different ones, and it is nice to get one. In the last few weeks they hadn’t been working, so it is nice for one of them to come off. ‘It was one of those where the blocks worked. It is good play. You get goals off set-plays. ‘When I was at Stoke under Tony Pulis, the amount of goals we scored off set-plays was incredible. So fair play to the manager for working on them.’ County boss Jim McIntyre praised his team for having the nerve to take the game to Rangers after a run of nine games without a win, saying: ‘When we’ve been on the run we’ve been on, it takes guts to play against a good side, press them high, get numbers forward and create chances. ‘I thought we were really brave. We defended well at times and we’ve got to take that type of performance and keep trying to make that better. We will climb the table with that endeavour and that quality.’