Scottish Daily Mail

No Rangers Roofe raiser but it’s still job well done for Ibrox men

- By JOHN McGARRY

IF there are no absolutely certaintie­s in f ootball, Steven Gerrard entrusting Kemar Roofe to lead the line last night must have been as close to one as you could possibly get.

By any measure — 54.6 yards begin the favoured one — the hero of Liege had earned his place here and then some. If he was capable of the kind of feats that earned him world renown, what better man to convert more routine openings i nto another three Europa League points? So much for the theory, at least.

This was to prove a night of toil for the Englishman, though, an occasion where chances were very much at a premium. How the striker had to work for the few sniffs that came his way. And when they did, he was found wanting. Football’s capacity to build you up and knock you down evidently knows no bounds.

The incessant rain throughout the day in Glasgow would have made the many hard yards he covered all the harder and you couldn’t f ault his ef f ort of applicatio­n. He couldn’t have demanded the ball more often or taken more knocks for the cause.

Centre-forwards live or die by t heir s upply l i nes, t hough. Gerrard’s side had scored 13 times in their four previous matches in this competitio­n, often creating chances at will.

They found the going much tougher here. Lacking the zip and fluency of their season to date, an insufficie­nt number of questions were asked. It made for slim pickings for the front players although, ultimately, they only required one to get the job done.

Give Lech Poznan their due, though. Sitting in the bottom half of the Ekstraklas­a and having been thumped at home by Benfica in their opening group game, you could have been f orgiven f or believing that they’d arrived here more in hope than expectatio­n.

Yet there was nothing in their approach to suggest diminished levels of self-esteem. Gerrard had predicted they would pose a threat by throwing bodies forward yet would also l eave themselves vulnerable defensivel­y. On both counts, he was correct.

You had to admire the Poles’ slavish devotion to passing the ball out from the back. Even when they were besieged by blue shirts in their own box, they persevered. Even when they lost the ball, they built again.

For all their risk taking, though, they could play some smart stuff and they were organised and didn’t give much away. Rangers needed to draw on the experience of the past two campaigns to get a second straight win.

There were early flashes from Ryan Kent but they were no more than that. Roofe rolled his opponent to set up Ianis Hagi at the far post only for the Romanian to react too slowly. Scott Arfield’s strike then worked the keeper.

Roofe miscued a routine header then improvised with an overhead kick which drifted harmlessly wide. Steven Davis’s wayward long-ranger summed up a Rangers’ first-half display lacking in direction.

With his side lacking a spark, the only wonder that was it took Gerrard until the hour mark to make a change.

Roofe predictabl­y made way for Alfredo Morelos, his solemn expression upon being withdrawn a sharp contrast with the wide-eyed elation of last week.

It took just six minutes for the Colombian to steal his thunder, a trademark bullet header from Borna Barisic’s cross equalling Ally McCoist’s record of 21 European goals.

Neither man may have scored a goal quite as jaw- dropping as Roofe produced in Belgium but what manager wouldn’t give his right arm for such dependabil­ity?

Gerrard’s side certainly have a bit of everything about them right now. There’s that sense that even when not at their best, a goal — spectacula­r or routine — will come from somewhere. A defence that’s now racked up 14 clean sheets in 17 games. Put together, it’s a

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