Although the scoreline doesn’t tell the full story, Rangers could count themselves unlucky not to, at least, get on the scoresheet against Napoli on Wednesday night, a higher pass and aggression saw Alfredo Morelos spurn a couple of golden chances to get his first Champions League goals.
There was still room for a lot of improvement and if we have learned anything from our time in the competition it’s that you get punished for every mistake and can’t allow opposition strikers to get either time or space, defenders might get away with it in the Scottish Premiership but it’s a different level entirely playing the likes of Napoli and Liverpool.
What we did see was more creativity against the Italians, strangely enough, if you win the ball higher up the park, it makes it easier to create an attack, there were still a few occasions where the final ball went astray though and the imminent return of Ianis Hagi would go a long way in helping to turn moments into opportunities.
The playmaker has been speaking about getting back to full fitness with Romanian Football on Twitter reporting that the 24-year old is in a good place:
“You can’t get better and better from week to week. It’s an injury, in my opinion, more mental than physical I’m very good mentally, I’m happy, I feel strong and I don’t have long to recover. Everything is good!”
One of the things I think that our attack has missed in Hagi’s absence is how quickly he is willing to play forward passes, he wasn’t one for slowing down moves if he had an option in front of him, hopefully when he returns he can provide the spark that has, on too many occasions, been missing this season – after all, we could do with something to cheer about.