2019’20 game 18: rangers (H) Sun. Dec 15th

[mfc]

We normally atleast make a bit of a game of it at home to the old firm but this has been shocking,gillespie has been brilliant,other than that the rest of them have went through the motions.

[SteelmaninOZ]

You need the VAR that linesman needs to learn the offside rule 

[texanwellfan]

Pretty dismal display, not unexpected but on to the next game. 

[Shotts Well Fan]

so many bad performances it is hard to know where to start. Passing terrible, defending at corners atrocious. Without Gillespie we would have been humped. Depressing.

[SteelmaninOZ]

1 minute ago, Shotts Well Fan said:

so many bad performances it is hard to know where to start. Passing terrible, defending at corners atrocious. Without Gillespie we would have been humped. Depressing.

Aye depressing 

[weeyin]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, this the best Rangers team we have faced for at least a decade. Given our track record we had less chance of a victory than Corbyn.

(A little bit of politics there. Don't forget to tip your bar staff.)

[Orinoco]

Lethargic all over the pitch. Rangers are a better team than us, but i guess thats what you get when they spend 3rd parties millions. Nothing learned today, that we did not know already.

[ECOSSE1991]

Poor stuff but let’s get things into perspective,  we’re only 9 points behind Celtic. Would any of us expected this at the start of the season?

[Lobey_Dosser]

Today was an opportunity to test Rangers on the back of a tiring week but we never got near them. Our creative players, Polworth and Hylton, offered little while Mugabi was far too naive for my liking. 
 

Will be interesting to see if we return to picking up the points against the lesser teams. My hunch is that we need to freshen up the shape and/or personnel in the midfield. 
 

Long and Gillespie the plus points for today. 

[SteelmaninOZ]

4 minutes ago, texanwellfan said:

Pretty dismal display, not unexpected but on to the next game. 

Got to agree tex are you still going to fly/wave the Motherwell flag at the Cowboys game?

[texanwellfan]

Yes, disappointing but looking at where we are we have got to be pleased. We should be able to fix our basic passing. Hopefully we can finish the year strong and pick up a few more points over the next 3 games to help consolidate our top 6 position and perhaps see us sitting in third spot at new year. 

[texanwellfan]

2 minutes ago, SteelmaninOZ said:

Got to agree tex are you still going to fly/wave the Motherwell flag at the Cowboys game?

Nah. That was only if we won.  just hope I can stay awake on the drive to Dallas after getting up so early ! 

[SteelmaninOZ]

1 minute ago, texanwellfan said:

Nah. That was only if we won.  just hope I can stay awake on the drive to Dallas after getting up so early ! 

My bedtime now 

[Yodo]

Pure shite the team never turned up apart from Gallagher and Gillespie rest of them were like rabbits in headlights .

[Ross]

Would put Seedorf on, bit of pace and power.

Power?


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[Ya Bezzer!]

The thing is Rangers weren't that special today. 

I was expecting a lot more from them but all they really did was do the basics better than us in the first half.  They went in at half time 1-0 purely because WE kept giving the ball away.  The number of corners and set pieces we conceded in the first half was ridiculous and of course when Rangers got their opening goal it was from a corner, when only a minute or so before our goalkeeper had the ball in his hands.  I like Gillespie, he's a good goalkeeper and he pulled off some good saves today but his distribution stunk  and played a part in our downfall.  

Second half, despite not improving much, Rangers fell away slightly and looked like we might actually get something out the match.  The introduction of Scott improved us a lot.  When Rangers killed the game a 2-0 it was probably against the run of the match at that point.   I was surprised Morelos wasn't taken off by Gerrard earlier in the match because that red card was coming all day.  He should have been booked long before he actually was.

After that the match was over and kind of petered out.

I keep drawing attention to our current midfield, it's not as bad as it was when we were playing McHugh, Grimshaw (terrible today at right back) and Rose in there but it's a big step down from last season with Turnbull and Gorrin.  The recent matches showed you can get away with poor distribution against even poorer teams but against half decent opposition it's a different story.

In our last 5 matches against the city clubs we've lost all 5, and are 12-1 down on aggregate.  When we come up against the very little quality there is in this league we struggle.  We seem to be the best of a poor bunch of provincial clubs.  That's not me throwing thunderbolts, just a realistic appraisal of what we are.

[Blakey]

2 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

In our last 5 matches against the city clubs we've lost all 5, and are 12-1 down on aggregate.  When we come up against the very little quality there is in this league we struggle.  We seem to be the best of a poor bunch of provincial clubs.  That's not me throwing thunderbolts, just a realistic appraisal of what we are.

Did I just imagine that we beat Hearts last week then?

[Ya Bezzer!]

6 minutes ago, Blakey said:

Did I just imagine that we beat Hearts last week then?

Fair enough.  But do you think Hearts are there as a measure of quality?

I'm thinking more about the four teams in the league that have any kind of quality about them - Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen and Hibs.  

[texanwellfan]

We do make things harder for ourselves with the number of basic passing errors giving the ball away under no or very little pressure.  We should be able to drastically reduce those errors fairly easily.  I did think today though that Rangers got their second goal during our best spell of the game and I’ve seen us play worse against 10 men. Again, sitting in a very good position with a lot of room for improvement

[texanwellfan]

6 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Fair enough.  But do you think Hearts are there as a measure of quality?  

I'm think more about the four teams in the league that have any kind of quality about them - Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen and Hibs.  

Aberdeen and Hibs are playing the same teams we are playing and we compare pretty well to their league position. 

[fizoxy]

We’re 4th after 18 games, including playing  the ugly sisters twice each, and  they are the only teams that have scored more than us, that’s how good we are. 

We were poor today, and I have a feeling that Rangers only played as well as they needed to, and could have stepped up if required. Saying that, long and cole had good opportunities to score that really should have been put away, so it was hardly a drubbing. Hylton could have just sat down in the centre circle for 70 mins and had the same impact. That’s the deal with wingers though.

Campbell is really improving on the ball and growing as a player, it’s great to watch. 

This was the first time I’ve saw Kent and I don’t see what the fuss is about. Morelos will never leave rangers because he’d be found out somewhere else.

[Ya Bezzer!]

14 minutes ago, texanwellfan said:

Aberdeen and Hibs are playing the same teams we are playing and we compare pretty well to their league position. 

Don't think we are really grasping what I'm saying.

I'm saying when we come up against technically better players we really struggle.

We've beaten teams higher up the league table than Hibs but Hibs have a standard of player that's technically better than ours.

If you think we keep possession and passed the ball well today, fine.  When we win, people white wash over our deficiencies.  When we lose players are accused of bottling or not showing up.

What I'm trying to highlight is that our  performance today was actually fairly consistent with how we played against St Johnstone, St Mirren and Hearts.

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 minute ago, fizoxy said:

This was the first time I’ve saw Kent

He's a good player but he's never a £7m player.

Turnbull was a better player last year than Kent.  

[texanwellfan]

1 minute ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Don't think we are really grasping what I'm saying.

I'm saying when we come up against technically better players we really struggle.

We've beaten teams higher up the league table than Hibs but Hibs have a standard of player that's technically better than ours.

If you think we keep possession and passed the ball well today, fine.  When we win, people white wash over our deficiencies.  When we lose players are accused of bottling or not showing up.

What but I'm trying to highlight is that our  performance today was actually fairly consistent with how we played against St Johnstone, St Mirren and Hearts.

Anything but. A lot of my posts agree with you in that I think our biggest issue is making basic passing mistakes and giving the ball away too easily as we transition into attack which leaves us open and vulnerable. 

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 minute ago, texanwellfan said:

Anything but. A lot of my posts agree with you in that I think our biggest issue is making basic passing mistakes and giving the ball away too easily as we transition into attack which leaves us open and vulnerable. 

Hooray! We agree!