Rangers’ winning streak continues, albeit in far from convincing fashion.
On Saturday, the Gers battled to a 2-1 victory over bottom of the table Livingston at Ibrox, with Emmanuel Fernandez marking his first start since August by scoring a towering header, only for Tete Yengi to equalise soon after, but Mohamed Diomandé’s goal 12 minutes from time, Bojan Miovski putting it on a plate for him, enough to snatch victory.
This makes it four Premiership wins out of four since Danny Röhl was appointed manager, the Gers’ longest streak since February, albeit they remain fourth, given that Hibernian beat Dundee 2-0 at Easter Road simultaneously.
Next up, Röhl’s team will take on Braga in a must win Europa League tie on Thursday and, despite victory on Saturday, which starter should be axed ahead of this one?
Rangers' current injury crisis
After some very underwhelming summer recruitment, most Rangers supporters agree that their squad lacks quality, so, when that is the situation, the last thing a coach needs is a lengthy injury list.
First-choice centre-back pairing John Souttar and Derek Cornelius are both expected to be sidelined until after Christmas, after suffering serious injuries while on international on the same evening, doing so within hours of one-another but more than 4,200 miles apart in Glasgow and Miami.
Meantime, just as he had started to click into gear, Mikey Moore suffered a muscle injury in training, so is set to spend weeks on the sidelines.
The Tottenham lonaee had made an inconspicuous start to life in Glasgow, but had started to show glimpses of his talent in recent weeks, scoring his first goal for the club at Dens Park in the last game prior to the international break.
In the absences of the teenager, Röhl’s team lacked dynamism, panache and flamboyance in attacking areas, with the player tasked with deputising certainly not earning rave reviews.
The Rangers star Röhl must axe after Livingston
Röhl went for a more attacking 4-2-3-1 formation for Livingston’s visit on Saturday, with Thelo Aasgaard given the free role as the central number ten.
Chalkboard
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The Merseyside-born midfielder helped Norway qualify for a first World Cup since ’98 during the break, coming off the bench as his country crushed Italy 4-1 at San Siro last Sunday.
Thus, Aasgaard was handed a first club start since being sent off during the League Cup semi-final defeat at the hands of Celtic at Hampden.
Well, he certainly did not grasp this opportunity with both hands, as the table below documents.
Shots
Zero
12th
Successful dribbles
1
11th
Accurate passes
12
16th
Key passes
1
4th
Duels won
2
24th
Touches
19
23rd
SofaScore rating
6.4
21st
The statistics underline that Aasgaard was generally pretty anonymous during Saturday’s victory, completing just 12 passes and only one dribble, not registering a single attempt.
The most galling number is the fact that the Norwegian international touched the ball only 19 times before being hooked at half time, nine fewer than goalkeeper Jack Butland and six less than Livi scorer Yengi.
Writer Kai Watson asserted that Aasgaard went “missing” in the first half, adding that he “needs to offer something” and is “capable of much more than we’re seeing”.
Meantime, Aheed Abrar of Ibrox News exclaimed that the midfielder was “embarrassing” on Saturday, awarding him a 3/10 rating, while Let’s Talk Rangers believes he should not be an “automatic starter” over Nedim Bajrami, Lyall Cameron and others.
Thus, despite their ongoing injury issues, Röhl does appear to have better attacking options than Aasgaard, who did little to stake a claim for a start against Braga this weekend.
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ByBen Gray