There are a number of situations, on the eve of a £40million-plus play-off for a place in the Champions League proper, that make you feel that the American Revolution at Rangers isn’t quite panning out the way people thought.
There’s the obvious, broad-brushstroke stuff, of course. The team, quite frankly, cannot defend and look wide open almost every time they lose the ball. Which is quite often, by the way.
Over and above the three-goal home win over Viktoria Plzen in the last round of qualifiers in UEFA’s premier competition, they have too often lacked the zip and ingenuity to break down opposition teams.
And all that has led to some really, really serious questions about the new head coach Russell Martin. If you took a straw poll of the people who have been going to Ibrox in recent weeks to watch the early days of his reign play out, it would be no surprise to hear a sizeable number want him out the door already.
He was hardly a popular appointment in the first place and the standard of performance under his tutelage so far has been a textbook case of how not to win friends and influence people.
That, then, brings you to some specifics. Club Brugge are on their way for that Champions League play-off and Rangers are somehow in a position where they have to pray that Cyriel Dessers is fit to lead the line.
Rangers boss Russell Martin saw his side concede comical goals in the 4-2 win against Alloa
Martin insists that the work he and his staff are doing will eventually pay off for Rangers
This is a guy who was supposedly on his way to AEK Athens weeks ago. Hard as he tries and as much as he puts himself out there time after time, it has been established that the Nigerian international is not a man to lead the line long-term. Not a man to hang your hat on when it matters.
Yet, unless something dramatic plays out in the next 24 hours, Rangers desperately need him to get over the knee injury he suffered in the second leg of the clash with Plzen. Martin has stated that Hamza Igamane is not physically ready to start and anyone who has been watching Danilo of late can tell you that he won’t cut the mustard either.
The Brazilian hasn’t scored a competitive goal this season. In what turned out to be an almighty struggle against League One Alloa Athletic in the Premier Sports Cup at the weekend, he was anonymous again. Hardly touched the ball.
No progress has been made on signing the centre-forward the team so badly needs — and has needed since the window opened — and the weekend brought news that a known person of interest in Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Dor Turgeman is the subject of a bid from MLS side New England Revolution.
At the other end of the pitch, meanwhile, Rangers are just a disaster waiting to happen, no matter who seems to play in their back four and no matter who they are playing against.
The goals conceded against Alloa in yesterday’s 4-2 win were comic cuts stuff. The first, when Rangers were a goal up from a lovely opener from Nedim Bajrami, was insane.
Nasser Djiga loses the ball in midfield after taking a rush of blood to the head and falls over. Bailey Rice, stuck at left-back because there’s no one else, gets skinned by Steven Buchanan. Rangers have umpteen chances to clear the danger and, after a bout of bagatelle, Max Aarons smashes it off Joe Rothwell — who has already used an arm to block a goalbound shot — and it cannons off his napper and into the net.
Manny Fernandez, who was no great shakes at the back, and a James Tavernier penalty got it to 3-1 before all hell broke loose again. Free-kick to the back post, David Devine jumps to win a header against Kieran Dowell, whose back is to the ball and whose feet are planted on the ground, it hits off the underside of the bar and Scott Taggart is standing on the goal-line to make it 3-2.
James Tavernier converts a penalty to put Rangers 3-1 up in the Premier Sports Cup tie at Ibrox
That it took a 90th-minute finish from substitute Findlay Curtis to make this game safe for Rangers is bonkers. It’s all bonkers, really. This is a Rangers side failing to keep possession, continually playing silly passes into silly areas and looking nothing at all like a cohesive unit.
In previous domestic meetings against Motherwell and Dundee, two teams expected to end up bottom six in the Premiership, they were sliced open over and over again. And there’s nothing to suggest that pattern is going to change any time soon.
As for sorting out this riot of a rearguard? Is a 19-year-old left-back on loan from Brentford in Jayden Meghoma — when there’s a reported £6m coming into the coffers from the sale of Jefte to Palmeiras — a copper-bottomed answer? Is a defence full of players on temporary agreements an answer either? Djiga’s on loan from Wolves. Aarons, dreadful so far, is on loan from Bournemouth. Meghoma’s now in the building.
Listen, Rangers are in a big rebuild. Loans can be a fast and cheap method of getting talent you couldn’t normally afford — winger Mikey Moore is another in the door from Spurs — but do you really want a team built around so many of these guys?
Like Aarons, Meghoma is a player Martin has worked with in the past. As is Rothwell. Whether he plays against Brugge or not is going to be fascinating.
The 30-year-old was brought in from Leeds United to be the linchpin in midfield. A guy who would play a big role in introducing others to Martin’s methodology. He looked good in his first game at home to Panathinaikos. Since then, less so.
In a revealing interview after a better display against Alloa, Rothwell admitted he had spent previous games playing too many safe passes instead of moving the ball forward.
That’s not good. He’s supposed to be one of the guys Martin’s system is built around and is already looking like he might not be the best option for that No 6 position when Nicolas Raskin is still at the club.
If Rothwell doesn’t keep his place for a game as big as a Champions League play-off, what does it say about how things are working out for him?
There are umpteen other issues you could talk about too. Why Tavernier, now 33, looks like he needs to start because no one else is up to it? Why Dowell is still getting game time? Why so much dead wood remains in the squad?
No one can realistically expect Rangers to dispose of Brugge over two legs. And it’s not the end of the world if they don’t.
Martin’s bigger problem is that the visit of Celtic to Ibrox on August 31 is now thundering over the horizon and defeat there is not going to go down at all well inside a stadium which has already threatened to turn toxic this term.
The head coach keeps talking about how players are learning and how everything is going to work out fine in time, but all he is offering so far is words. Evidence that his plan looks like clicking is non-existent.
Yes, Rangers have burned through too many managers in recent years. However, the words of vice-chair Paraag Marathe in his first media appearance at the end of June cannot be ignored as the team stumbles from one dismal display to another.
‘There’s no such thing as a honeymoon period in football,’ stated the man who is also Leeds United chairman and president of 49ers Enterprises.
So far, life under Martin has been no honeymoon. A couple of bad results at Ibrox over the next two weeks and you can be sure an increasing number of understandably irate punters will be bellowing for divorce.
Rangers (4-3-3): Kelly 6; Aarons 5, Fernandez 5, Djiga 5, Rice 4 (Tavernier 45); Rothwell 6 (Barron 68), Dowell 4, BAJRAMI 7; Cortes 5 (Curtis 84), Danilo 4 (Igamane 68), Moore 6 (Aasgaard 69).
Booked: Barron.
Manager: Russell Martin 5.
Alloa (4-3-3): McFarlane 7; Foster 6, Devine 6.5, Taggart 6.5, Waters 6; Scougall 6, Hetherington 6 (Bruin 90), Roberts 6 (Donnelly 86); Buchanan 7, Rankin 5 (Sammon 59), Orsi 6 (O’Donnell 59).
Booked: Hetherington, Devine, O’Donnell.
Manager: Andy Graham 6.
Referee: Dan McFarlane.
Attendance: 33,959.
