Calamity

A travesty. Hopeless failure. Truly scraping the barrel.

None of the above comments come close to truly capturing how bad Rangers have currently plummeted. The bowels of mediocrity have been surpassed and we now reside in a hopeless pit of embarrassing and shameful despair.

Tonight was a critical game, and nothing less than a decent victory over a first-division team would be adequate, and clearly Le Guen understood this and sent out a pretty strong team with the notable exception of our captain. Unfortunately the performance he and 30,000+ supporters witnessed at Ibrox took our atrocious season to its lowest ebb yet, and our club to the brink of sheer chaos.

By full time, St Johnstone had strived to achieve a pretty easy 2-0 win, which in reality could have been even more, and should have been.

A protest was apparently staged at the end of the game, and while protests of this nature are never pretty and muddy the reputation of the club, it is clear that the motivation for it is sound.

We are currently a shoddy outfit, being beaten by the likes of Dundee Utd and St Johnstone – it is staggering to consider the steps backward the club has taken since the appointment of Le Guen.

We lie third in the table, but not convincingly, and have been turfed out of the CIS Cup which we had a chance of winning given Celtic’s exit last night, but instead put in an abysmal display and were overcome by a team who normally would have been put to the sword.

Le Guen said in post-match interviews:

"I am very disappointed and I apologise to our supporters. We did well for 30 minutes and created many crosses and some chances.

"After that though we lost our organisation and St Johnstone deserved their victory.
"It's a difficult period but we must stick together. I will try to carry on.”

He then added it was up to him to find a solution. Regrettably he’s said this many times before and we continue to slide down the toilet.

"The only way to get through this is to stick together. I have lost many games before but this is one of the lowest."

Le Guen is right, this is one of the lowest, although perhaps he is being generous by not advocating it as the worst result in Rangers’ recent history.
We are in a dark, dark place right now, with only our Uefa Cup exploits preventing our season from sinking without a trace.
How much longer this blatantly dire trend will be allowed to go on is anyone’s guess.
Murray must speak to the fans soon. Le Guen is arguably on borrowed time already.

Dangling close to the edge

On Wednesday Rangers will enter Ibrox facing a St. Johnstone side in the CIS Insurance cup who lie joint-top of Division 1 along with Partick Thistle.
League results for Rangers have been fragmented at best and the two cup tournaments they are currently participating in have provided a welcome distraction, such is their positive form in them both.

However, a poverty of consistency has blighted their endeavours overall on these shores, and that trend must be reversed when the Saints come to town.

In today’s news from Ibrox though, Le Guen was very cagey about the prospect of enhancing the squad come January, explaining that the quality players he desires are in the higher spectrum of cost, so at best only one could be obtained, but even then clubs are loathe to let go their star performers. Even worse, January is a poor period to pick up Bosmans, as contracts don’t expire, in general, until summer as opposed to winter. He clearly wishes to reinforce the personnel at his disposal but his hands are pretty much tied.

There are also whispers from Ibrox that he wishes to offload some of our players, including one of his very own summer signings. Furthermore, he officially concedes that many of those he secured prior to the season starting have not adapted to the SPL in the way he and the club needed.

The obvious conclusion the observer can draw is that this seriously undermines his own judgement in the transfer market; if he, by and large, is incapable of signing players suited to the SPL, then can we conceivably trust him with more financial muscle?

The obvious answer is no, but at the same time Bosman players do not guarantee a great deal of quality. Letizi and Sionko are examples of this. Plus the loan deals endowed him with the patchy Martin although also enhanced our squad a tad with the decent Bardsley. Problem is the players he paid for included the struggling Svensson, the fish out of water Sebo, and the inconsistent Papac. The only purchase to look a touch of real class and justify his transfer fee is a player Le Guen already knew incredibly well from the youth team his former club Lyon, Jeremy Clement. So in actual fact the only successful player he actually paid for was one he’d previously coached. That is obviously a fairly unique case, and casts doubt on his ability to observe new players and judge them suitable, or otherwise, to the SPL.

This is beside the point for the moment though, Rangers’ priority is St Johnstone tomorrow night, and nothing less than a convincing display against a lower division side would be acceptable. However, these cup competitions are notorious for giant-killing. Only tonight Falkirk overcame Celtic and in England Southend finished off Man Utd. So it does happen, but that would be scant consolation to a Rangers side already perilously close to the edge, with a boss who is beginning to look more shell-shocked with every passing match which fails to go as planned.

The fans are already disillusioned with events in Govan, a defeat to St Johnstone would truly mount the increasing pressure on the man from France.

He has to pray his players deliver, and his tactics are suitable.

Depths of despair

Back to earth with a bump. A shuttering crash at that. That’s the result of excelling in Europe before dismally failing once again in the league.

The Uefa Cup is giving Rangers an escape, a release from the travesties awaiting them in the SPL. While performances against glamorous (Or at least foreign) sides are proving fruitful, useful and almost wholeheartedly convincing, undertakings in the Scottish league reap far less pride.

A 2-0 victory was acquired against Haifa, and once again the bowels of disappointment had been escalated and replaced by a modicum of hope. Yet fast-forward 3 days later to Tannadice, add a couple of minor adjustments to the side by Le Guen, and you have yet another row of ladder rungs breaking and an untimely fall to the ground by an inherently baffled Rangers site, stuttering drunkenly through their league endeavours.

And yet, the first half had proved reasonably competent – Clement pulling the strings in the heart of midfield giving Ferguson joyful freedom to express himself and drive forward (Albeit let down by some incriminating finishing), while Hemdani and Papac seemed stout enough at the back. Unfortunately, this was about as productive as it got – 2 catastrophic defensive errors committed by 2 players not known for their rearguard attributes in Prso and Adam, 2 conceded goals which cost the entire game, and an utterly toothless attack in which wild and erratic shots from the likes of Adam and Ferguson rained in on Stillie’s goal. Or didn’t, hence one of the problems – they found themselves either in orbit or closer to the corner flag than the target.

There was simply no conviction about Rangers, and Utd never seemed out of the game. It’s all very well being able to dominate in possession, but when it’s completely impotent play it will go nowhere. And this being carried out against genuine bottom-of-the-league cannon fodder like Utd is simply beyond words.

An abject concern was the complete lack of poise up front. Yes, the sieve-like defence was pretty horrifying too, but our inability to look truly dangerous coming forward is a real worry. Novo had plenty of running, and even a trick or 2, but they went nowhere. Prso ran on empty as usual and even ended up yellow-carded for his trouble, while Buffel’s inept showing highlighted his appallingly inconsistent nature.

Boyd, being benched, would have been gutted to miss out, believing that he would have taken the chances we got. That said, the chances we got were not even half ones at that.

Then we have to look at Le Guen; why bench Boyd, and why insist on continually unsettling the defence by repeatedly rotating it? This random squad nature is helping no one. Benitez is famous for doing the same thing at Liverpool, but he seems loathe to fiddle with his backline, sticking with Carragher, Hyppia, Riise, and Finnan where possible. And Le Guen too should be sticking with a constant defence.

The only area of the team to enjoy a run is midfield; Ferguson and Adam and formerly Hemdani now Clement; and it is the most stable and reliable area of our team.

The rest is all over the place.

Le Guen looked a broken man at the end of the 90 minutes against the Arabs, and truly perplexed in his post match interview. He seems frustrated, clueless, and unaware of what the SPL needs for success. 2 and half months into his tenure, and domestically speaking Rangers are going backwards from the end of the atrocious Eck era. Surely he has to get it right soon, or the buffer zone he has been in will snap shut and fans will genuinely call for his resignation.

If he thought it was hard at the start of his tenure at Lyon with such a poor points haul there, he really understands what pressure is at Ibrox.