It wasn’t pretty, in fact it was downright ugly but Rangers made it through to the semi-finals of the Betfred League Cup after a 1-0 victory over Livingston.
Livi manager Gary Holt had expressed a desire for his charges to “showcase their talents”. If by talents he meant their ability to punt the ball 50 yards and elbow players in the face without seeing red, then job done!
The sheer physicality of the game and style of Livi’s play led for a mainly chaotic 90 minutes, with the occasional break out of quality.
One player who could easily have been a stand out for man of the match was Sheyi Ojo. The on-loan Liverpool youngster has, so far, met Steven Gerrard’s brief of providing more goals and assists. With 5 goals and 4 assists in 14 games, on paper, Ojo has started his Rangers career on fire.
Or has he? The issue with Rangers fans is displays like the one against Livingston on Wednesday evening. On too many occasions he chose the wrong option and/or made a poor decision when he was in an excellent attacking position.
He had an easy chance to pass the ball, unobstructed, across to Alfredo Morelos on a counter attack which would’ve given the marksman a 1 v 1 opportunity in the middle of the box.
After doing the hard part and beating three defenders from the halfway line and running in on goal, he took too many touches and allowed goalkeeper Marija Sarkic to close him down.
Ojo also hesitated when presented with a clear strike at goal and took a touch instead of shooting first time, allowing the defender to apply pressure – the resulting effort was little more than a stab at goal.
Then, with a chance to cut the ball back to Scott Arfield, unmarked, from little more than 9 yards out, he shanked a shot wide of the post. Even if it was on target it would’ve been blocked given the proximity of the defender.
On another night Ojo scores a couple of goals and puts the game to rest, but he kept going, he kept demanding the ball, making runs and breaking down Livingston’s defence. It had the potential to be a 10/10, match winning performance, but instead was rated by Rangers News as 6/10as “frustrating”.
Rangers fans will need to accept that this is what they will get from Ojo, he will be the difference between success and failure one week – his stunning winner against Feyenoord still fresh in the memory – and frustrating the next. With the imminent return of Ryan Kent, he will be hoping for more of the former than the latter or he may not get the chance at all.