On a night when Rangers rolled out the heavy artillery for an assault on the league title, it was the fringe players who took care of business in this Scottish Cup rout of Annan Athletic.
A largely second-string team, many of whom could yet depart Ibrox before the end of the transfer window, secured a routine victory for Danny Rohl’s men to book their place in the fifth round.
Bojan Miovski netted a hat-trick, with the other goals coming from Kieran Dowell and Thelo Aasgaard, as Rangers saw off the part-timers with minimal fuss and ensured there was no repeat of last season’s cup calamity against Queen’s Park.
But the match itself was largely a sidenote to the bigger picture and the sight of three new signings being paraded shortly before kick-off.
First to emerge from the tunnel were Tochi Chukwuani and Tuur Rommens, the Danish midfielder and Belgian left-back who have been recruited for a combined outlay of £7million.
When it was then announced that Rangers had sealed the loan signing of Danish winger Andreas Skov Olsen from Wolfsburg, it produced the loudest cheer of the night when he joined his new team-mates.
Rangers striker Bojan Miovski heads home his second goal in their 5-0 win against Annan
Miovski completes his hat-trick in the Scottish Cup fourth-round tie with a second-half penalty
New loan signing Andreas Skov Olsen is introduced to the Ibrox crowd just before kick-off
Chukwuani would be back out on the pitch before the end of the night, as Rohl opted to give him the final half-hour from the bench.
But it’s the statement signing of Skov Olsen that has fuelled belief that Rangers can go on to have a serious crack at winning the league title in the second half of the season.
A goalscoring and creative winger who has 40 caps for Denmark, his arrival will inject some proven pedigree and firepower into the Rangers forward line.
The Ibrox club will hold an option to buy Skov Olsen for a fee of around £8.5m in the summer and it will now be a case of getting him up to speed as soon as possible.
Rohl will look for the Dane to spearhead the club’s attack and the fact that Rangers have been so proactive in the market is a clear statement of intent.
But there will be plenty of those fringe players involved last night who will be lucky to play any part in the club’s title fight over the second half of the campaign.
Rohl made wholesale changes – nine in total – to his team, with the likes of Liam Kelly, Joe Rothwell, Findlay Curtis, Clinton Nsiala, Danilo and Dowell all coming in to get some game time.
Nasser Djiga also returned to central defence after his recent exertions with Burkina Faso in the African Cup of Nations – and he bizarrely caused a delay to kick-off after having to nip back down the tunnel to get his gloves.
Annan, meanwhile, came into this tie on a period of prolonged inactivity. Willie Gibson’s men hadn’t played since December 27 due to two matches being postponed amidst the recent cold snap.
The League Two side needed to blow off the cobwebs and get themselves up to speed as quickly as possible, with the odds stacked firmly against them.
Gibson and his skipper Tommy Muir had spoken in the build-up about recent cup upsets in England and in Europe, and how those would fuel Annan’s belief that they could cause an almighty shock.
They actually started the match reasonably well and enjoyed some decent spells of possession deep in the Rangers half, but their resistance was broken on 12 minutes.
The goal was very scrappy in its creation. A loose ball broke to Miovski on the edge of the box and, after working a yard of space on his left foot, he drilled a low finish beyond Charlie Albinson.
The Annan keeper may have felt like he could have done better and there was certainly a sense of frustration among the visitors in terms of just how soft and avoidable the goal had been.
Credit to Annan for the way they responded to that setback. They continued to get bodies forward and were causing Rangers problems in the wide areas.
Aidan Smith and Charlie Maxwell both sent over a couple of good crosses but they found no takers. For all they were ahead, Rangers weren’t exactly tearing the minnows apart.
They finally showed some sort of attacking fluency on 32 minutes in a slick move which saw Djeidi Gassama and Dowell combine to feed Curtis out on the right.
The young winger dinked a good cross over to the back post and Miovski rose to nod a simple header into the net for 2-0.
Rohl made a tactical tweak midway through the first half, switching Curtis to the right and Gassama to the left, and Rangers looked all the better for it.
Annan were bidding to repeat their Ibrox heroics of 2013, when they won 2-1 here in the old Third Division. But, trailing 2-0 at the break, it was a long road back.
It was 3-0 within a couple of minutes of the restart as Rothwell clipped a ball into the box and Dowell guided a looping header beyond Albinson.
At this point, with the result beyond any doubt, it was really just a question of how many more goals Rangers wanted to score.
Chukwuani came off the bench and showed some neat and tidy touches in midfield. A £4m addition from Sturm Graz, he should bring energy and power to the midfield.
Miovski bagged his hat-trick on 74 minutes, sending the keeper the wrong way from the penalty spot. Whilst the opposition was minimal, Rangers need him to keep up his eye for goal.
The North Macedonian has had a stop-start to his Ibrox career. But there is certainly a player in there and, on his day, he probably remains the best finisher at the club.
After coming off the bench, Aasgaard netted a stunning free-kick to round off the scoring and ensure it was an emphatic night’s work for Rohl and his players.
Bigger challenges will doubtless lie ahead. But with the likes of Chukwuani and Skov Olsen onboard, the air of positivity around Ibrox at the moment is undeniable.
