«FIVE FATAL FLAWS AFFLICTING RANGERS
Kent not living up to £7m price tag and Morelos posted missing are brutal realities facing Gerrard
TOO soon to start picking over the bones? Not for Rangers fans who can sense what’s coming. They can feel it in the deepest pocket of marrow, taste it on the changing winds, smell it in the air around Ibrox.
While that infernal pest called hope will continue to nag away at the sinking hearts of supporters, then, many will already believe that the chase is over.
And, naturally, they’ll be looking not to apportion blame, exactly, but to identify areas that require reinforcement, lest Celtic march on to ten-in-a-row without more of a fight.
With that particular theme of self-improvement in mind,
Sportsmail examines the five fatal flaws that caused Rangers to flat-line when it mattered.
RECRUITMENT OR PUTTING ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE VERY HUMAN BASKET
There was solid logic in Rangers signing Ryan Kent on a permanent deal last summer.
The kid had been a real hit with fans during his loan spell at Ibrox, bringing a creative spark to the final third that set Steven Gerrard’s men apart from the pack.
As for investing £7million in landing the Liverpool winger, well, that’s no more than English market value for a young player of promise.
But here’s the difference between Rangers going all-in on Kent and, for example, Celtic breaking their own transfer record to spend £9m on Odsonne Edouard — another player who had impressed on loan in Glasgow — at the start of last season.
Edouard was always joining a strong supporting cast. A squad of sufficient depth that meant he could be rested from time to time, allowing him to iron out any kinks in fitness or form.
Kent, on the other hand, was asked to pull his own weight, shoulder the burden of that price tag — and carry the team.
Although he has actually matched his goal tally from last season already, hitting an even half-dozen with plenty of games remaining, no one is pretending that the 23-year-old has lived up to those crazy expectations.
Gerrard suggested, in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s defeat to Kilmarnock, that he had looked at bringing more fresh blood in during January but had decided against it. There was more than a tinge of regret in his voice as he said it.
The mid-season market isn’t great for any team on the lookout for quality, though. And it’s not as if Rangers, who did loan deals for Ianis Hagi and Flo Kamberi before the deadline, could afford to take too many risks.
When you’re trying to close the gap on rivals with far greater resources, it’s just not possible to get recruitment wrong.
That’s especially true in the case of a marquee signing, a player of genuine quality expected to make all the difference come crunch time.
LEADERSHIP OR LACK OF
Gerrard himself freely accepts blame for this. When he talks about players being unable to handle the heat of a title race or cope with the ferocity of opponents smelling blood, that’s on him. He signed them.
As a player, Gerrard was that shining example of someone who won games — and trophies — by sheer force of will.
If it would never be easy to find another one just like him, this is a Rangers squad notably lacking in the right sort of mad man. A force of nature capable of bending the world to his will and still being a little irked at the outcome.
Nobody wants to say it. But they’ve needed a Scott Brown for a very long time. Steven Davis is a veteran and, in a quietly effective sort of way, a winner. Ryan Jack wants it more than anyone.
Yet, those are only individual character traits that make up the ideal on-field leader.
There’s no one at Rangers who qualifies as the complete package. And there are too many who have been counted among the missing during this winter crisis.
ABSENT ALFREDO
There’s no denying that Alfredo Morelos, a man who has contributed so much to the cause during his time at Rangers, has let them down when it mattered.
Oh, he’s done more than most to carry the fight to all-comers in plenty of games, dragging his team up the park and into contests when all seemed lost.
But receiving red cards in two consecutive starts in late December, whatever your views on each of the four cautions leading to those dismissals, was almost unforgivable.
The three games he missed at the start of 2020 now look absolutely crucial, certainly.
Jermain Defoe is a classy enough stand-in, of course. Yet his lack of pace over distance — such a shock in one who has always been so quick — was particularly exposed in defeat to a Hearts team able to play a ludicrously high line, knowing the 37-year-old was never going to run away from them.
And the impact of Morelos missing three games isn’t restricted to the fixtures in question.
Because of the winter break, the striker spent a full month away from competitive football and has clearly struggled to regain his sharpness, with Gerrard himself admitting that the Colombian’s all-round game just wasn’t there at Rugby Park on Wednesday night.
During the pivotal phase of this title challenge, then, the record will always show that Morelos contributed just a single goal.
PLAN A PLUS
Steven Gerrard’s apparent inflexibility as a tactician is a recurring theme among many Rangers supporters.
No, it’s not always as simple as changing for change’s sake. There isn’t a coach in the land who believes that the cries of ‘Do something, do anything…’ make for good management.
But too many opponents, Celtic excluded, ironically enough, have figured out a way to stifle Gerrard’s Rangers.
Simply asking players to be better at doing the same thing? Fine when it works. But open to tough questioning when things go awry, as they most certainly have for the Light Blues.
CELTIC’S WINNING MACHINE
No team fails in isolation. There has to be a winner who makes everyone else look so bad. And Celtic have been nothing if not brutal in putting challengers back in their places.
Neil Lennon’s men, in his first full campaign back at the helm, are a full ten points better off than they were after 26 Scottish Premiership games last year.
There’s your gap. Eight straight victories, two in the Scottish Cup and six in the league, since the winter break have simply set a pace that no one could live with.
If it’s of little consolation to anyone at Hummel Park, they’ve been left trailing by a thoroughbred group able to drop quality players in and out of the match-day squad without stumbling too badly.
Rangers aren’t in that position. Not yet, anyway.