Rangers suffered from yet another away defeat in the Scottish Premiership, After Steven Gerrard’s men went down to a 1-0 loss to newly promoted side Livingston.

The Gers have still to pick up an away win in the league under their new manager, with them succumbing to two defeats and two draws on their travels. The club currently sit in sixth spot in the league table and are eight points behind top placed Heart of Midlothian.

Against Livi, the Ibrox side weren’t even that good and I’d say that the home side wanted the points more. To question his teams hunger will surely hit Gerrard personally, as he’s a man that always wants to see his men give their all for the badge.

Gerrard was quick to praise the opposition after Sunday’s loss but he also warned his own stars:

“Credit to Livingston, they deserved it. We didn’t create enough and the one thing you don’t want to do now as a player is play your way out of the team.”

Part of the problem at the minute is that Gers players are sometimes finding themselves out of the team even after decent performances and victories.

For me, the manager himself needs to find his best eleven and stick with it. He clearly likes to tinker around with his starting line-up and I think that sometimes causes more issues than this Rangers team can handle at the moment.

In the last two seasons, Rangers have had three different bosses and a host of changes regarding squad personnel.

Gerrard arrived in the summer and seems to have galvanised the whole club. He’s done a magnificent job in Europe, guiding The Gers to the group stages of the Europa League. He’s also watched on as his players have managed to easily defeat opponents as Rangers have reached the semi-final stage of the Betfred Cup. In the league, Stevie has also turned Ibrox into a bit of a fortress.

Most of his summer signings look to be an improvement on those that left the club in recent windows. The morale seems to be a lot better and the new gaffer looks to be top notch when discussing his team in front of the TV cameras.

Yet there are still sticking points.

With a pool of players that are still a bit fragile from the Pedro Caixinha era and the ‘banter years‘, if you get a good foundation and you start to win and boss games then you need to harness that feel good factor.

By constantly changing the defence and midfield, as Gerrard has done thus far, I believe you are unnecessarily confusing things.

The most important thing to do if you are Rangers manager is to win football matches. In Govan that goes above everything else. You can play pretty badly but if you sneak a win, the fans will go home happy. They don’t demand fancy football, they want three points and crave silverware.

Obviously the new manager has brought in a lot of new faces and he’ll be eager to give them all a run out and keep everyone on their toes. But use the League Cup and the bonus extended run in Europe to freshen things up. In the league, I believe he should now have a team and formation that he can bank on and that will win the majority of games.

Chopping and changing your central defenders or your back four doesn’t give you the best continuity and partnerships. Changing your formation and the faces in midfield can also upset the team’s rhythm.

I just wouldn’t overanalyse your own team selection or the opposition. At Rangers you need to go on a winning run and put pressure on the other challenging teams. The best way to do that is by finding a winning formula and sticking with it!

Posted on October 2nd, 2018 by scott
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