Rangers Drop Points For First Time Since August: What Went Wrong?
· Yahoo Sports
It was not a tough night at the office for for Derek McInnes's side as Rangers dropped points for the first time in quite a while in a frustrating 2-2 draw at Dundee on Saturday night.
Truth be told, this was not just 'one of those games' either. It was not one of those games where you say '9/10 times Rangers win that'. No, far from it. If any team did enough to win the game, it was the hosts.
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So, what went wrong?
It's a pretty arbitrary thing to say, but way too many players did not show up. Players who have been very good recently were not good here. Ryan Don Naderi has been good of late, but was pretty terrible in this one. If he does not score, he might as well not be on the pitch.
Another example is Dujon Sterling, whose excellent form of late had seen him singled out for praise by McInnes, but he was at fault for one of the Kilmarnock goals, got booked, and just generally did not have a great game at either end of the pitch.
The solid defensive bedrock that appeared to be implemented from the end of August until this game went out of the window. As touched on earlier, Dundee looked the more likely to grab a winner out of either side, and created plenty throughout the 90 minutes.
Rangers gave up four opta defined big chances to Steven Pressley’s side on Saturday. To put that into perspective, they had given up a total of three big chances across the previous four games combined. So, clearly that same defensive structure and robustness was not on show this time round.
Finally, McInnes needs to take some blame. He was outcoached by Pressley on the night, as hinted as above. He is certainly not being helped by all the injuries, but his in game management was off, only two subs and neither of them felt calculated. More “oh go on then, I’ll make some changes”.
Just a tough day all round. Lots of things and people to blame, but time to move on. Let's hope that Celtic also drop points at home to Hearts, otherwise, for all of the good work done in the past six weeks or so, the team will be four points behind, and as close to Hearts themselves in third as top spot. Let's see.