Good week/bad week
This week saw Rangers crash out of Europe to unfancied Kaunas of Lithuania, due to sloppy play and Walter Smith’s stubborn attitude sticking to his preferred 4-5-1 formation. An early chance on goal by Kenny Miller was hit too high and over, Having taken the lead from a Kevin Thomson goal just after the half hour mark, Rangers played it cautiously to retain their one goal advantage.
However, Rangers lost a goal to an outstanding free kick drilled into the net by Nerijus Radzius just before the halftime whistle. No substitutions were made at half time and the team seemed to be playing for the draw, while Kaunas, who played a similar cautious style to ours during the first half and first leg, stepped up a gear and kept pressing Rangers. Their attitude paid off when Christian Dailly gave away a corner in the dying minutes and Pilibaitis netting from the cross making it 2-1. Smith made a substitutions a minute before the end with Lafferty and Boyd coming on and the team reverted to a “punt it up the park and hope for the best” while the minutes ticked down.
Supporters representatives met the Ibrox management on Friday for discussions on the teams performances and signings, especially the lack of them in the midfield. The management assured the delegates that the club were activley looking to bolster the squad in the midfield, where we are clearly lacking in a creative force with Barry Ferguson out with a long term injury.
The newspapers this week have been the usual doom and gloom - themes following the Kaunas defeat include scare stories of top player Carlos Cuellar leaving for a variety of premiership clubs, “mass cull” of players and virtually every reporter writing the team off before the league had even kicked a ball. Their intentional and misinformed reporting is infecting the Rangers support and for many, they are their only source for information on their club.
Smith has assured the club in a BBC interview that no offers have been made for Cuellar, and that he is not interested in selling him. Doing so would do nothing but fan the flames of unhappiness amongst fans of Rangers, who are quickly losing patience with the manager. However, despite this interview, the Saturday rags were back doing what they do best; stirring up the Cuellar saga again. It makes you wonder why fans of both sides of the Old Firm hate the Sun and the Daily Record.
Moving onto the weekend, the SPL season kicked off today with an away tie to Falkirk. Rangers played well enough to secure a 1-0 victory, but the mounting injury list is apparent, no Barry Ferguson, Carlos Cuellar, Nacho Novo or Kenny Miller to name just a few who are currently out with knocks ranging from a few days to a few months.
After a scrappy game with only one goal seperating the teams, new boys Lafferty and Bougherra gave impressive displays, and the other player making his Rangers debut, Velicka, netted the only goal of the game. A notable performance from Kirk Broadfoot showed he can perform, lets hope he can find some consistency over the coming weeks.
Falkirk were awarded a penalty in the game, McGregor saved it with ease - earlier in the match he looked as rusty as he was against Kaunas but the penalty save seemed to give him the confidence he needed, and continued to play solidly for the rest of the match.
It was good to see Smith revert to a 4-4-2 formation, though weather this is due to the lack of players who can fill midfield roles, or pressure mounted on him after the midweek tie at Kaunas is anyones guess. It worked, and I hope Smith does not decide to drop this tactic against Hearts next week at Ibrox if Miller is back in contention for a place in the squad.
Other good news this week: Barry Ferguson’s ankle operation was a complete success and he will be back in action by November.