The strictly on-message Rangers Review, part of the Newsquest Group, has admitted that there is a sense of crisis around their club.
A fortnight ago everything in the garden was rosy with early transfer business ensuring Champions League qualification while Celtic scrambled around at the end of the window to bring in Sead Haksabanovic and Oliver Abildgaard.
Manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst had sussed out how to cope with Ange-ball with the Dutchman displaying a range of tactics to make the club a force in Europe. They beat Dortmund after all.
Being heavily on board with your club is a real contradiction when things go wrong, badly wrong. To retain any credibility you can’t sugar coat back-to-back humpings, to say on message inside the media tent there are certain lines that you have to play within.
Jonny McFarlane likes to think that he can balance that issue out but as he watches his team take two tankings he has screamed out in despair rather than trust Mr Van Bronckhorst to get things right against Napoli tomorrow night.
In the Review today he explains:
The sense that a crisis is now gripping Rangers in the aftermath of two 4-0 defeats at the hands of Celtic and Ajax has been impossible to ignore.
Fans will always react to football with emotion first and ask questions later, but there was something in the manner of these defeats that even the most level-headed Rangers watchers were bristling at what they had witnessed.
When the normally uber-positive Ally McCoist looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust on live TV you know there’s a serious problem.
Both games had an end of days feeling, a sense heightened by a seeming lack of commitment to do the basic dirty work every elite football match needs.
Next up is likely to be Napoli in the Champions League and the squad have a lot to make up for. Here’s how they can turn it around.
Work on set-pieces
A major issue throughout the season so far, the team has a soft centre at the heart of the defence when balls are thrown into the box. Ajax star Edson Alvarez’ goal to open the scoring in midweek was a debacle – four players moved towards Calvin Bassey, James Sands was nowhere, Connor Goldson and James Tavernier ended up marking each other and were caught under the ball.
Draw a line in the sand with a big name
The whole team is misfiring with Borna Barisic the only one to come out of this double header of disaster with any credit. You can’t drop everyone but Giovanni van Bronckhorst can make a statement by singling out one.
Graft
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. It’s an old cliche but it’s endured because it’s true, especially in top level football where the fine margins are now infinitesimal.
When Barisic is your star man your team has serious problems although McFarlane’s football knowledge is dubious at the best of times.
#Celtic‘s Kieran Tierney is a decent player but Barrie McKay is Scottish football’s most gifted talent – McFarlanehttps://t.co/5bp9sNdewj pic.twitter.com/YVLJYyDiq3
— Daily Record Sport (@Record_Sport) January 19, 2017
McFarlane worked as a typist at the daily Record for years and now he works for the more abhorrent,Newsquest ! It kind of tells everyone about the failures of this individual .To be seeped in all the corruption over the years at Ibrox ,knowing one day all will be revealed in the washing ,and keep silent on all of it , reveals the true credentials of this good ol’ boy ! Would you buy a used car from this cattle hand ?
we are 2 weeks in to september and the bigots are in crisis van the man told the truth there is a handful of teams from the top leagues who have big owners with plenty of money to buy the champions cup.That’s the fact some teäms might beat them now and again but the big boys are just to strong let’s not kid ourselves it’s just a cartel of the top teams so van brock is correct but also his team have been poor could be he has lost the dressing room as they say but in football things can change quickly hope not .
Still waiting on that cracked or broken crest since their klub is in a crisis or meltdown.