RANGERS ARE STILL NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE
DEFENSIVELY weak and wobbly. Mentally not prepared to compete against opponents who ran up a humiliating record score on their last visit.
My, we’re all going to look terribly silly when rangers romp to a surprise victory at Ibrox on Saturday, aren’t we? Yes, well. Quite. It’s a risk most of us are pretty relaxed about taking, to be honest.
Not just because Pedro Caixinha’s target of winning three Glasgow derbies in eight days suffered a sloppy setback on opening night.
Nor merely because that 5-1 old Firm thrashing last time around, Celtic wandering down to Govan and pocketing — with ridiculous ease — three points they didn’t really need, was a pretty accurate reflection of the gulf between old rivals who have grown inexorably apart in recent years. No, this widespread understanding that any kind of performance from the visitors will see them emerge triumphant, it’s founded on more than just a couple of dispiriting results.
Because, while it is true that — after six months and one very active transfer window — Caixinha has improved rangers in certain areas, his failure to tackle key failings increasingly looks like a dereliction of duty.
Starting with the most serious flaw, few can deny the damning evidence that points to a lack of actual match fitness within the Light Blue ranks.
they look more than a little winded in the closing stages of games, do Caixinha’s men. Someone has miscalculated the ‘loading’, to use one of Mark Warburton’s old favourites.
Caixinha wouldn’t be the first incoming manager to misunderstand the physical requirements of Scotland’s top flight.
Looking at the fixture list, there is a natural temptation to think that less is more, in terms of building stamina.
there’s a lot to be said for not putting too many miles in the legs on the training ground, if it means keeping some energy back for matches.
If there is one thing demanded of teams looking to compete for prizes in the Scottish game, however, it is an ability to run, run and run for 90-plus minutes with only the odd stoppage — a throw-in, maybe the blessed relief of someone getting treatment for exhaustion — allowing combatants to catch their breath.
Caixinha would appear to have misjudged his calculations, allowing his players too easy a ride. And leaving them short of oomph when they need it most.
Is that related to the defensive failings that still leave rangers vulnerable to even the most basic forms of attacking pressure? that the team lying third in the Premiership are struggling at the back is a point on which even the players themselves are willing to concede ground.
Get enough balls down the flanks and then into the box, and these guys will give any team chances.
When you consider Celtic’s almost religious adherence to a high-tempo pressing game, allied to relentless and varied attacks, it must be hard for even the rangers diehards not to fear the worst.
What, exactly, are the expectations of Ibrox regulars heading into this fixture? Surely they must demand more than merely doing better than that 5-1 home trouncing back in April. But would sneaking a point represent a moral victory? Look at the fixture coldly, if that’s at all possible, and it should be obvious that even the maddening game of football — where the freakish happens on a regular basis — is unlikely to throw up a win for the home side on Saturday.
Yes, it’s safe to say that Celtic’s recent Champions League experience might have knocked their confidence somewhat.
Watching Scotland’s title holders being played off the park by PSG, it was akin to witnessing someone who has worked hard all year for the dream holiday in the Caribbean … only for their trip-of-a-lifetime to coincide with the latest once-in-a-century hurricane. Currently arriving twice a month.
But they’ve dropped back into domestic competition pretty much unscathed by flying too close to the new sun kings of Paris, picking up where they left off.
Caixinha, meanwhile, is back under pressure … just when he’d managed to earn himself some relief, courtesy of back-to-back wins against lesser opposition and a bit of them-and-us siege mentality.
Winning tomorrow night’s Betfred Cup quarter-final against Partick back in Maryhill is a must, of course.
Beyond that, should rangers look unready or unable to cope with Celtic once again, the manager may join his players in finding it a little hard to breathe.