What a difference a day makes.
Before kick off on Thursday night, there were few out of the 48,000 in attendance at Ibrox that would have complained if Allan McGregor, Connor Goldson and Alfredo Morelos were sat watching from the bench, however, there’s a reason why Giovanni van Bronckhorst has captained a team that made it to the World Cup final and won numerous trophies as player and manager – he knows how to lead.
Choosing to have a word with his under performing stars rather than dropping them appears to have been a master stroke with the three of them, arguably, the best players on the pitch, although Calvin Bassey gets an honourable mention.
The changes that he spoke about before the game were mainly tactical rather than to personnel with an adjustment to the shape designed to get the best out of Alfredo Morelos and the three behind him, his desire to see the Colombian play higher up the pitch and on the last defender paying dividends with two goals scored by him occupying space between the width of the goals.
In defence there was a subtle change too with Bassey charged with being the more aggressive of the pairing which allowed Goldson to keep things simple, there is nothing wrong with going back to basics and getting rid of the ball to clear lines rather than playing out from the back all the time – that Ryan Kent was occupying the touchline more often also provided an alternative out ball.
It’s early days but the performance against Sparta Prague was encouraging, and that was after just two training sessions, imagine how good they’ll be with some proper time together.