It’s easy to understand why Ridvan Yilmaz and Ben Davies haven’t seen much game time recently. Borna Barisic is back to his best and both James Sands and Leon King have impressed alongside Connor Goldson, however, in the case of Rabbi Matondo it’s α little more confusing.
He is competing for α place on the wing with Ryan Kent, Scott Wright, Fashion Sakala and, at times, Scott Arfield with only the latter getting on the scoresheet this season, however, he does his best work arriving from α more central position and, especially in domestic football, playing alongside John Lundstram.
Wright has one assist in 10 games, Kent has three assists in 10 games, hardly the sort of numbers that will grab headlines, so why isn’t Matondo getting his chance? Giovanni van Bronckhorst left the Wales international out of the squad entirely at the weekend with his rationale equally as confusing as his absence, as reported by The Rangers Review:
“Before the three defeats we had players scoring from midfield.
“Tom Lawrence is one of the players who has started the season really well as well. Unfortunately we don’t have him.
“We have to have more players to be able to score. Ryan Kent is a player who is also very dangerous, but also needs to improve his scoring. He knows that he needs to improve that.
“Rabbi is a player who can deliver that. He is one of the players I didn’t pick today because I had to go from 23 to 20, which is always difficult for a manager to do so.
“We will just go on with the squad we have, improve them and make sure we develop as a team in the coming games.”
Specifically, why does Wright and Kent keep getting so many chances with Matondo the first name to miss out when they are all fit?
There was no need to play three central midfielders plus Arfield against Dundee United, even less need to have Steven Davis on the bench with James Sands there. Matondo isn’t going to adapt and adjust if he is sitting in the stands. Likewise with Sakala, Gio clearly doesn’t rate him – 100 minutes all season – so what is the point in him taking up α space in the match day squad now that Alfredo Morelos is fit?
UEFA’s regulations on home grown talent dictates that we need players like Wright for European football, however, in the Premiership this simply isn’t the case. I agree with α lot of the things that Gio is trying to do, however, his continued use of Kent and Wright without giving Matondo α fair crack of the whip is one that continues to puzzle me, ironically, he could be the only one heading to the World Cup in November and yet we’ve barely seen him in α Light Blue shirt.
Easy answer is Matondo has been crap every time he has been on the pitch .I don`t rate Wright but he has his dangerous moments and at least does his tracking back duties . Kent is off form but even on a bad day carries more threat than Matondo and the reason that he picked Arfield in front of them all is that he is playing better and scored a couple of goals . Matondo needs to look at himself , not blame Gio .As for Sakala, again , I`m not fan , but I would try him on the right wing as his best game was away to Hearts last season playing there and surprisingly he has never been used there again.