Toothless Rangers had to go 1-0 down before upping their game, and one critic has ripped them apart.
Rangers are a’moments’ team, and Philippe Clement should be CRAZY about their over-reliance on individual talent.
That is the opinion of Andy Halliday, who ripped the ‘abysmal’ performance against Queen’s Park apart. We’re three days out from Callum Davidson’s team’s cup demise, but the fan rage hasn’t subsided following one of their all-time worst Scottish Cup performances. The Championship side had only one shot all day, but it was enough to defeat a weak Ibrox team who couldn’t even generate a goal from James Tavernier’s late penalty, and they got what they deserved for their profligacy.
It means they’re very guaranteed to finish the season without a domestic title, having already lost the League Cup final and behind Celtic in the Premiership by 13 points with 13 games remaining. But Motherwell striker Halliday, who spent five years at Ibrox between 2015 and 2020, believes the genuine divide is much more obvious than that.
He said on Open Goal: “Rangers played with zero urgency until they went 1-0 down. I said this to my mate I was watching the game with, the urgency they played with at 1-0 down – that’s how Celtic play from the first minute. That’s how they blitz teams in the first 10-15 minutes, and that’s why opposition teams will say there’s a massive gulf between them, because it’s so much harder to play against Celtic.
“Queen’s Park had a clear game plan to sit and frustrate Rangers, low block. And because they’re not getting touches of the ball, Hagi, Igamane and Cerny are playing centre-mid, because they’re having to come to the ball.
“If you’re a manager, I’d be going mental there. If you watch Celtic, Maeda, Kuhn, Idah or whoever it may be, they’ll stay in their position, because they know with their set rotations and their good players, they’ll eventually get in good areas to go and affect the game.
“Whereas Rangers have always been a moments team. They always rely on individual quality to go and break someone down. That’s why Cerny has been a standout at certain times, because he can make something happen and unlock a door. It was an awful watch, Rangers were abysmal.”
