With Rangers conceding twice against Partick Thistle in our last game, within 20 minutes of the half time restart, manager Pedro Caixinha has called on the team to show a significant improvement on how we start the second period of games following recent performances.
Having taken the lead on Friday through Alfredo Morelos, Partick hit back twice leaving Graham Dorrans to level matters up late on and Caixinha told the Official Site that recent games had shown us we have a problem following the restart and things have to improve as he been left talking about second half starts in games against Dundee and Ross County recently.
‘Yes. I think in the last couple of games, we haven`t started well. We`ve allowed the opponent to get, in the previous one, into our box from kick-off. Tonight, we lost an easy ball on the right and allowed them the transition to come and get the momentum of the game and to start getting in the second half of the game.’
He added.
‘We need to manage much better the moments. We need to keep the ball and we need to attack spaces. We need to find the moments where we need to attack the ball quicker and the moments where we need to move the ball slower. It is one of the details we need to keep working on. We are an aggressive team – we are a team with pace, a team with anger and a team with ambition, but we need to have more control of the game, and for me, to have more control of the game we need to have the ball.’
Questioned more on the return to Firfill in the League Cup quarter finals in midweek, he added that he wouldn’t be making wholescale changes but we were obviously waiting to see what happens with Lee Wallace given his substitution with injury in the last game.
‘I am not the type of coach who looks to make changes just for the sake of it. If we have the need to make changes, then we will make changes. The team is ready to play every four days – we have four days to recover and then another four days. We are not concerned about it, but, for example, we need to see what is going on with Lee Wallace, and which players can be options for us on Tuesday.’
Fabio Cardoso was also speaking briefly following the game and he knew Rangers should win any match where we score two but our own errors had cost us.
‘It was a hard game, and we can`t commit mistakes like that as with two goals scored, we can`t lose the game. We made a lot of defensive mistakes and we have to improve and do better on Tuesday when we come back here. For us, the game could be tomorrow. We want to play quicker to improve and win as we deserve to win and we are more than we showed today.’
With Caixinha talking about second half restarts, he went on to say.
‘It is something we have to improve. We have to control the game as the teams start very strong against us, so we have to start stronger, and yes, it is a thing we have to improve for the next game. Of course, after we conceded the second goal we tried the whole game to score and score. We scored one, but we needed two, but, like I say, when we score two goals we have to win the game.’
