RANGERS PASS TEST OF NERVE
Gerrard’s men bounce back from cup calamity as patience proves key to seeing off Steelmen
ONE defeat was described as a blip. Two would have been a full-blown seismic event.
The fact Rangers managed to reset their Richter Scale back to zero in the space of the final 18 minutes of a game they’d spent staring at defeat spoke volumes for the character and resilience of Steven Gerrard’s side.
Behind to a sloppy sixth-minute goal from Callum Lang, their first conceded in domestic football at home all season — and facing a dogged 5-5-0 Motherwell formation the Ibrox manager admitted he’d never encountered before — it felt for a long time like the chances of bouncing back from their Betfred Cup calamity against St Mirren just wasn’t going to happen.
But turning to the full depth of his squad, they finally burst the dam and the floodgates opened, the relief flowing almost as much as the goals.
A double from Kemar Roofe, taking his tally for the season to 10, and another goal for sub Cedric Itten brought them back from the brink of further accusations that their bottle was about to crash for the second season in succession.
And with a taxing three weeks ahead, which includes facing Celtic, Hibernian and Aberdeen, as well as a return trip to St Mirren on league duty, it was a massive statement from Gerrard and his players as they stretched their lead at the top of the table to 16 points.
Before the game, Stephen Robinson had made it clear Motherwell would be taking a different approach. They’d tried the toe-to-toe thing and paid a heavy price, losing five straight to the Ibrox side and shipping 19 goals in the process.
So they parked their egos at the bottom of the marble staircase and went for out-and-out pragmatism.
With the ball, as often as that actually happened, you could be generous and say they were almost playing a 5-3-2, with Tony Watt and Lang nudging forward. Without it — which was more often than not — it was an out-and-out two banks of five, hellbent on denying Rangers any time and space, particularly out wide.
All of which nearly went for nothing in just the second minute when keeper Jordan Archer spilled a swivelling Jermain Defoe shot from the edge of the box, needing Liam Grimshaw to sweep away the loose ball from a predatory James Tavernier.
But inside six minutes, they got what they so craved — a lead to hold on to.
And much like the goal Rangers lost at Tannadice last week, only in reverse from right to left, the spotlight fell on the full-backs’ defensive capabilities.
Stephen O’Donnell was allowed to deliver the ball unchecked from the right of the Rangers box, Borna Barisic’s attempt to block far too timid and, although Filip Helander didn’t look particularly clever as it flew past him in the six-yard box, it was Tavernier who was caught dreaming at the back post, Lang stepping in to slide home the simplest of finishes.
What followed was the ultimate test of Motherwell’s resolve.
In poor form themselves, with just one point from their previous 12 and only 15 goals scored in their previous 17 games, notwithstanding the six they were awarded by the SPFL, they were in need of a jag in the arm.
Rangers, however, were patient. It was yet another of those occasions where they would have been grateful for an empty Ibrox. In normal circumstances, they’d have had 50,000 on their case with the passing of every frustrated incursion into the Motherwell box — and there were dozens.
A Tavernier free-kick just over the bar, a beautifully-deft Defoe back-flick from a Ryan Kent delivery forcing Archer to claw out low at his right-hand post. A Kent header from Steven Davis’ flighted ball in, drifting inches wide with Archer watching and waiting for the net to bulge.
The possession figures for Motherwell would have been in single digits for long spells, but their determination and discipline was clear.
Call it anti-football all you like, but, as much as it was a stifling game plan, it was also an impressive exercise in team spirit and mental fortitude.
All of which only holds true as long as your line does. Having been ahead at half-time in 15 out of 18 games this season — and not behind in a domestic game at the break since St Johnstone in February — Rangers were now in unfamiliar territory.
They brought on Joe Aribo at the interval, clearly feeling he was a more likely candidate to break those two banks of five in an advanced role than the polished control of Glen Kamara further back.
And the first time he did almost paid off, breaching and making the byeline, only for Declan Gallagher to brilliantly block off a certain finish from Roofe at the near post as he slid in to meet the cutback.
Realising that Plan A was toiling, Gerrard even tried a bit of rope-a-dope, sitting off in the hope the visitors would come out and leave them some room to counter. Which they did, to be fair — his side just couldn’t execute with any accuracy.
In recent months, no team could have stuck so doggedly for so long to the same plan here without it feeling inevitable they’d be broached. Rangers’ Ibrox record of 28 goals scored in eight games, with none against, was all the evidence you needed.
But that was a side without a kernel of doubt. This one, the seed had been planted last Wednesday night in Paisley.
Yet at the first sign of Motherwell’s shape breaking, they pounced. Archer’s poor clearance saw them exposed, Connor Goldson found Tavernier wide, Kent kept the full-back’s deep cross alive at the back post and managed to nibble it back into Roofe’s path at the second attempt, after initially hitting Bevis Mugabi, and the Englishman buried it with ferocity from the six-yard line.
The die was cast. Itten grabbed a second with eight minutes left, burying Ianis Hagi’s flick-on from Tavernier’s corner at the back post, and, in injury time, Roofe added his second, Aribo’s persistence in the box setting him up.