Fixing Rangers is so much simpler than it seems to be | OneFootball

Why has it gone so wrong for Rangers since 2011? It’s honestly a lot more simple than many fans seek answers for, and it harks back to how important defenders are.

Walter Smith, Graeme Souness, Alex McLeish and Dick Advocaat all knew how important defenders are, especially the great Walter. These guys signed defenders.

Guess who else did?

Angie. Over there. He signed 5 in his first window, including Vickers and Starfelt, not to mention Scales. They became the bedrock at the back for that Celtic team and watching Vickers slap Dessers silly yesterday was depressing.

It’s no coincidence that since Rangers’ 55 Celtic have dominated the SPL – they have a defensive spine including a colossus at the back, who has remained in place, and when he’s injured they have good stoppers to step in.

Rangers?

We like Souttar, but he can’t do it on his own, and Robin Propper is yet another Connor Goldson – Rangers decided to replace Goldson with the same thing all over again – a soft-centred ‘player’. Leon Balogun is great but isn’t fit enough, but the manager doesn’t play him when he is. And we’ve got some random new Dutch lad in there whose name escapes everyone.

But the bigger problem?

Clement, and other managers who preceded him, don’t play the Rangers Way. The Walter Way.

They don’t soak up pressure, they don’t sit deep, they don’t defend strongly and dominate their own half, and they don’t, any more, have a top class goalie who is the last line when a team does breach.

These days it’s the-now insipid and egotistical Jack Butland, with a soft defence in front of him, sitting a stupidly high line instructed by a dumbass European ‘progressive’ manager who doesn’t grasp how to manage our club in the SPL.

The appalling full backs are another big problem – far too advanced and not good enough at actual defending, leaving two slow CBs on their own, being bypassed by (literally) anyone with a decent peg and a runner ahead.

It’s basic stuff.

And it’s Celtic doing it now when it was Walter and Rangers who used to.

Rangers have become the 90s Celtic, without playing even the decent football Tommy Burns used to. Legendary Andy Goram broke his heart, but Walter’s Rangers knew how to contain that Celtic.

It’s depressing beyond words, but our club (and managers) just make the same mistakes over and over again. Playing football that doesn’t fit our club and expecting it to work.

Never signing decent defenders and not building the side around that as a result.

And we don’t trust them to learn from a single mistake.

Ibrox Noise spoke to Richard Gough (now there was a boy who could defend) about this some years back, and his huge complaint at the time was how soft centred our defence was, how far apart the CBs were – how he and Davie Weir at Everton always kept close proximity with each other, and how he’d spoken at the time with the late Great Walter about how bad Rangers were at defending now.

Under Clement it’s still a mess.

We can scream at them how basic this stuff is, but nope, let’s just play transitional bollocks or ‘progressive’ nonsense based on modern coaching jargon which is meaningless on the pitch.

Having big strong defenders is a lot more simple. Too much to ask for though isn’t it?