The Champions League is not the environment to sit back and hope that you can nick α result against the run of play – it might happen once every blue moon but it’s not α tactic that is routinely successful, sooner or later, the better teams find α way through.
Rangers got the balance right against Napoli before James Sands saw red, however, against Ajax and Liverpool away from home we have neither impressed nor looked anywhere near the level that we are capable of playing at.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst, as reported by the club’s official website, is adamant that we get the balance right this time out:
“We need to attack, but we also need to defend very well because we’re playing against a side who can do both. It’s going to be a very hectic game as it is when we play at home. Ibrox crowd will definitely push us to another good performance.
“You want to start games on the front foot. That’s what we’ve always done at home, especially in games where we needed a good performance. That’s also the key for us that we start the game well and make sure we keep the pressure on our opponents.
“We need to work hard as a team to create chances and score and, at the right moments, defend as well.”
Gio is right, we’ve not done ourselves justice so far.
Not having any points is one thing, not scoring any goals is borderline embarrassing, regardless of the teams we have in our group.
We’ve gone toe to toe with good sides in the past, albeit maybe not quite as good as Liverpool but at this level there is one major difference – you get punished for your mistakes.
Anfield is the perfect example, α silly free-kick and α clumsy/mistimed tackle and we were two goals down.
Talk is cheap though, let’s hope manager and players put their money where their mouths are.