When Giovanni van Bronckhorst took over as Rangers manager he couldn’t have asked for a tougher run of fixtures, it would have been even tougher if Aberdeen and Celtic hadn’t gone crying to the SPFL to get their home games against us postponed.
He’s come through them all with flying colours, only once failing to win – a 1-1 draw with Lyon in France hardly a disgrace – more impressive is how quickly the players have adjusted to the new tactics, seven clean sheets in nine games is a huge improvement.
There is though, more to come, after Van Bronckhorst reported that there is still work to be done to get us closer to being the finished article, something that Alan Hutton, speaking to Football Insider, reckons should send shivers down the spines of ever other Scottish Premiership manager:
“They’ll hopefully just look after themselves for the next week or so.
“They’re back in on January 5th, then they’ve got a couple of weeks to really prepare for that Aberdeen game.
“Out of the whole situation, the chance to work on tactics will be the biggest positive Van Bronckhorst takes. He hasn’t had a lot of time to work on his tactics and the other side of it.
“It’s always been game after game after game. We have seen the little tweaks he has been able to make. The players have really taken to it. We can see that.
“But having a block of time, two weeks where he can work with the players, that’s probably what he’s most looking forward to.
“I understand what he’s saying. He feels that he can get them to be an even better team out the back of this winter break. That’s a scary thought.”
Under Steven Gerrard we rarely came back after the winter break and looked like a better team, hopefully Gio can change one of the most frustrating habits of the last few seasons and spur us on to another level, in every game, as Hutton rightly says, we have seen subtle tweaks and few – perhaps only playing Glen Kamara and John Lundstram together – have failed.
The clean sheets and performances have been fantastic, and yet, there are still players like Ryan Kent and Ianis Hagi who could be adding a few more goals to their respective games, if they can find their shooting boots we really could be a fearsome prospect.