The Hampden pitch and weather conditions meant that Sunday’s Viaplay Cup semi-final against Aberdeen was never going to be a footballing spectacle, and yet, Rangers played some decent football for long spells of the 120 minutes.
Where we didn’t cover ourselves in glory is learning from the mistake that Manchester City’s defenders made against Man United when they failed to deal with the ball first and ask questions later.
Borna Barisic, Ben Davies and Allan McGregor were all culpable for Aberdeen’s goal, even after an earlier warning that was ruled out for offside and, if we are going to play a high line, either the defence needs to be more aware or our goalkeeper needs to be ready to sweep up.
Speaking after the game, via The Rangers Review, Michael Beale praised his side for reacting positively after displaying a nervousness that has affected our progress since the new manager took over:
“I told them to stop being anxious because in the last few weeks there have been moments where we have been behind, we have shown unbelievable mentality and unbelievable strength in terms of our style of play and sticking to it.
“We have managed to turn results around and I think it would have been unjust if we hadn’t gone through today. But credit to Aberdeen because I thought they were terrific in the game.”
Beale is right, in terms of possession, chances, corners and general play, Rangers totally deserved to win. It was always going to be scrappy for spells but a mixture of poor decision making and poor finishing saw us under more pressure than we needed to be. Add that to a moment of amateur defending and the game became an uphill battle.
What was encouraging, as Beale picks out, is that the players stuck to the game plan and the winning goal was a moment where Scott Wright chose the right decision and Kemar Roofe executed the finish perfectly – it would be nice to see this level of execution more often and fewer moments of panic at the other end if we are to get to the level that the manager thinks we can.