Ibrox failure to build on success puts Wilson and Co under the microscope
THERE’S no question bad luck is a factor in Rangers going into the biggest game in their recent history with such restricted options. Bad judgement has got to come into it, too, though. That’s why sporting director Ross Wilson and the Ibrox board ought to come under as much scrutiny as anyone as the impossible dream of a place in the final of the Europa League goes on the line against RB Leipzig in Germany on Thursday.
Kemar Roofe’s latest injury, a rotten attack of ill-fortune poised to exclude him from both legs, couldn’t have come at a worse time with Alfredo Morelos also ruled out for the season. Yet, it has also highlighted many of the failings so prevalent at the champions in recent times.
It’s not that there aren’t other strikers on the books. The problem is that the one that cost £2.7million, Cedric Itten, is so far out of the picture that he isn’t even registered in the Europa League squad.
Fashion Sakala is. But would you be confident in him up front on his own away from home against the team sitting fourth in the Bundesliga? Sakala seems a lovely guy, an infectious personality, a player maybe useful to have on the bench to stretch certain games late on with his pace.
It’s just that he remains as raw as steak tartare. The fact he’s not terribly good with the ball has to be factored in, too. It’s why the idea of playing Ryan Kent as some kind of false nine in Leipzig is gaining such traction.
Of course, the added absence of Aaron Ramsey from midfield, again, just puts the cherry on the gateau.
When he was spirited in on transfer deadline night on loan from Juventus to such fanfare and lusty backslapping, it reeked of being an act of desperation from a football department that had failed spectacularly to deliver in the market. A big, shiny diversion.
No matter his pedigree, how was Ramsey ever going to be a success drafted in halfway through a campaign? He was 31. He had started only one game all season at Juve. In the four months before arriving, he had played six minutes at club level thanks to injury and coronavirus.
He’s shown some flashes, but nothing substantial. In six European games since arriving, he played four minutes off the bench in Dortmund and started against Braga. Ramsey has only been a first-pick in three league games. Now, he’s out again with the hamstring issue that forced him to leave the Scottish Cup semi-final win over Celtic before half-time.
It has all been so painfully predictable. A transfer short on logic that is also proving to be short of minutes on the park.
As manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst conjures with the best way to offer some attacking threat in a match that will surely be focused more on defensive organisation and solidity, the words of his predecessor Steven Gerrard hang heavy in the air.
It has taken a while, but Gerrard finally admitting, in a midweek interview with former England team-mate Gary Neville, that he sensed others within the club didn’t share his appetite to ‘go again’ after stopping Celtic from winning 10-In-A-Row was welcome.
It’s hardly the revelation of all revelations. Anyone watching closely could see that a lack of action in the market played a part in him leaving for Aston Villa in November. It is just comforting to have on-the-record confirmation.
Winning that 55th title last term was huge for Rangers. It should have been a real platform. Gerrard, to his credit, has taken ownership of the failure to beat 10-man Malmo at home and haul in Champions League money. Even so, can we look back at vice-chairman John Bennett’s grand promises of quality over quantity in the market and say that has been anywhere close to being delivered? Or that anyone even tried?
Last summer, Rangers signed Sakala, John Lundstram, Juninho Bacuna and Nnamdi Ofoborh. Scouser Lundstram, most certainly a Gerrard recruit, is blossoming into one of the characters of the team after a sticky start and his midfield partnership with Ryan Jack will be crucial in midweek.
The less said about the rest, the better. Mind you, January’s dealings still make that window look like the best — or should that be worst? — of the David Murray megabucks and moonbeams era.
Amad Diallo was just silly. A 19-year-old kid with almost no first-team experience could never have been expected to influence a title battle with Celtic and a European campaign. James Sands is clearly a project. And then there was Ramsey. Three loan deals. Not exactly the actions of a club building a solid base.
That Van Bronckhorst, despite ringing the changes big-time for yesterday’s win at Motherwell, has tended to lean on the same players during his reign leads you to think that he is not overly enamoured with squad depth either.
Where Rangers have an issue, though, is that the same players have been leant on for too long. The team had gone stale even before Van Bronckhorst came in. And although Europe clearly piques interest, that has caught up with them domestically.
Rangers are lucky Morelos has been so resilient. He had to carry the team on his back for two seasons prior to injury. Likewise, in big games, it is the likes of James Tavernier, Ryan Kent, Connor Goldson and Joe Aribo bailing them out. Guys who have been around for years and needed meaningful new arrivals to challenge them.
Sure, Rangers pushed the boat out to bring home ‘55’ and clearly don’t have the same level of funding available despite milking their own punters with some gusto since. Yet, that’s where this player trading model they keep going on about should have kicked in.
Outwith £12m from Everton for Nathan Patterson, they haven’t been bringing in fees to finance fresh recruitment. Indeed, Goldson, a major figure in the dressing room, is ready to walk for free.
When you can’t find buyers to cash in on talent at peak value and the vast majority of the signings you do make don’t work out, all manner of problems follow.
Here’s hoping Van Bronckhorst can find a way to overcome them in the Red Bull Arena. It is wonderful, and quite confounding, that he has reached this stage with these players, but it is hard to shake the feeling he is nowhere near being sufficiently tooled-up for such a challenge.
When it comes to the next round of recruitment, a mighty enterprise that must reshape an entire squad and its identity, it is starting to look like finding someone to replace Wilson (left) at the head of the tree might be a useful place to start.