Michael Beale’s appointment as Rangers manager will hopefully see a few changes emerge in the coming weeks and to the squad in general – there had been a malaise set in that had seen us start to drift aimlessly along.
There will be tactical differences, with the new manager looking at bringing a more exciting brand of football to the club, winning is not enough and he wants fans to enjoy watching us. Music to our ears but this is, of course, easier to say than it is to implement. Time will tell if he is a man of his word.
Another change, as Beale has hinted at in previous interviews is his reluctance to use more than one defensive midfielder. They may play the role differently but Ryan Jack, John Lundstram, Glen Kamara, James Sands and Steven Davis can all be put into this category. Lundstram, probably, the only one with the potential to play further forward and add goals from midfield. It will be a refreshing change to not see two of them sitting behind the ball most weeks.
What this could mean is rather than seeing just one attacking midfielder, we could see Alex Lowry, Tom Lawrence, Ianis Hagi and Malik Tillman playing together rather than competing for the same place. Straight away, any combination of these four adds creativity and goals.
Midfield has been the biggest problem this season, even with the number of injuries we’ve had in defence, with our wingers also struggling to contribute to the goals for column and it is something that will be pretty high on Beale’s to do list. Letting them play closer to the opposition goal would be a start.
I’m adamant that the players we have are a lot better than they have been showing this season – a change of intent, and a few tweaks and there is no reason why we can’t start to look a lot more like the team that we know we can be. Europa League finalists don’t become bad players overnight.