Pedro’s pick and mix
Ibrox boss chops and changes to salvage the point, reports Graeme Macpherson
THE former Rangers manager Mark Warburton was famously intransigent when it came to tactical tampering, believing the only course of action in times of adversity was “to make Plan A better”. Already it can be safely said that his successor is not of a similar mind.
After just two matches, it is too early to speculate just how Pedro Caixinha will fare in Scottish football but evidently he is not a man to ever die wondering. A goal behind at home to Motherwell at half-time, Caixinha took stock of his options and elected to tell three of his four-man defence to stay indoors. It later transpired that Lee Wallace, Lee Hodson and Clint Hill had all been struggling with a combination of injury and illness, but it was still a gutsy, perhaps risky, card to play.
The revamp saw Rob Kiernan – the one defender to return for the second half – Jon Toral and Andy Halliday form the unlikeliest of back threes, with the shape of the side morphing into a 3-1-4-2 formation that was more closely aligned to Motherwell’s set-up. The changes gave Rangers greater potency in attack but left them vulnerable in the back, with only a spectacular sequence of saves from Wes Foderingham denying Motherwell what would have been only a second win at Ibrox in 20 years.
In a remarkably open second half that appeared at times to be more like a basketball match as play went from end to end, Rangers also had chances to win it following Joe Garner’s equaliser, most notably a late Emerson Hyndman shot that arced over the crossbar. The end result did little to enhance Rangers’ chances of catching Aberdeen in second, the gap now at 10 points with just eight games of the season remaining.
“No Rangers manager or players can be happy if we draw, whether at Ibrox or anywhere else,” said Caixinha. “Motherwell were stronger than us in the first half. If we won one second ball, we were lucky. So we never had the ball to explore the spaces and we weren’t mentally or emotionally in the game. We tried to make those changes at half-time.
“But we also saw then that both Lees were struggling – Lee Wallace wasn’t 100 per cent and tried his very best, and Lee Hodson arrived with a high fever. Clint also felt his hamstring. So we were forced not only to change the mindset but then change everything else.
“We had been thinking of making one change at half-time. We wanted to get Joe Garner on to give us two strikers and Emerson was supposed to go off. But the circumstances when we got in at half-time dictated all the changes.”
Garner was the figure who drew Rangers level after 61 minutes. Kenny Miller, operating in a wide midfield role as part of the half-time revamp, swung over a cross that seemed to have just drifted too far beyond the back post. Garner, though, was able to stretch to wrap his left foot around a volley that thundered beyond Craig Samson. Ibrox came alive, expecting their side to go on and clinch the victory. Instead, what unfolded was an end-to-end contest that left both sides cursing their luck.
Motherwell may feel especially disillusioned given they had a “goal” chopped off after Stephen Pearson inadvertently got a nick on a Louis Moult shot that was going in anyway and then could only gape in astonishment as Foderingham made save after save. One plunging dive to keep out a Ryan Bowman header was particularly impressive, as were the Englishman’s reactions to push away twin efforts from first Moult and then Scott McDonald. An injury-time block from a McDonalddriven shot confirmed Motherwell’s fight against relegation would only be enhanced by a solitary point.
“Going into the game we would have been happy with a point, but after our performance today we’re very disappointed,” said manager Stephen Robinson. “There are not many teams who come to Ibrox and create that many chances.”
In his programme notes Caixinha had spoken about making Ibrox a fortress. “When they are standing in the tunnel I want them to look across at our team and hear the roar from the crowd and feel that they are already a goal down,” he wrote. It was his side who would be behind within three minutes, Chris Cadden’s corner travelling all the way to the back post for Moult to head home. Rangers recovered to claim a point but Caixinha’s tactical tinkering was the story of an eventful day.
No Rangers manager or players can be happy if we draw, whether at Ibrox or anywhere else