Stunning set piece stat shows instant Beale impact

Giovanni van Bronckhorst got a lot of things right as Rangers manager, however, it was a stubborn streak and the things that he got wrong and didn’t fix that saw him lose his job.

With a horrendous injury list, he needed to get the small margins right and set pieces are an easy way to improve your chances of coming out on top – if you put the work in.

Towards the end of Gio’s reign there seemed to be little else other than outswingers getting thrown into the box with a defensive midfielder and an 18-year old defender as our main targets.

Outswingers, statistically, tend not to produce as many chances so, with no big targets either, we were making it even harder for ourselves by the type of cross we were choosing to use.

Since Michael Beale arrived though we have seen an upturn in results and the fine margins have started to fall in our favour more often than not.

Harry Watling joined Rangers as a coach who would be charged mainly with helping to develop players individually, not only this, he was tasked with improving our set piece output. It’s safe to say that he has had a positive effect.

Rangers' attacking set-pieces have improved a fair amount since Beale arrived.

Goldson's strike is the sixth set-piece goal in 12 league matches. Rangers have the second-highest set-piece xG (0.42) p90 during that time.

They've played with a lot of fluency since the goal.

— Joshua Barrie (@JoshuaBarrieRR) March 4, 2023

Since Beale took over, as The Rangers Review’s Joshua Barrie explains, we have gone from bottom to second top in terms of expected goals from set pieces. We are mixing short, long, in and out swinging deliveries and it is paying dividends. The work that James Tavernier revealed that we are putting in on the training ground is paying off.

There are still a lot of improvements to be made across every aspect of our play, but we are certainly on the right tracks.