Steven Gerrard has reviewed Rangers’ 3-0 win over Hearts in an interview with RangersTV.
It was a strong performance and ultimately, a fairly comfortable, if long overdue victory.
Plenty of Bears didn’t see that coming when the team was announced though.
They voiced their frustrations on social media at the inclusion of the likes of Joe Worrall and Jon Flanagan, and the exclusion of fan favourites such as Ross McCrorie and Nikola Katic.
Furthermore, at that stage, the shape the manager was opting for wasn’t clear.
Even though it all worked out in the end, Gerrard felt compelled to explain some of his reasoning.
“Daniel Candeias put a mighty shift in at Celtic Park”, he explained, as quoted by RangersTV.
“He’s obviously played an awful lot recently and he has looked slightly jaded. So, I wanted to give him some oxygen and some energy tonight.
“Scott [Arfield]’s a clever player, Scott can play anywhere. He can play on the right, he can play on the left, he can play as an 8, as a 10 because he’s got game intelligence.
“I was very pleased with his performance tonight. He gets his goal, which I predicted when we spoke to him…so yeah, we did tweak it slightly today. The idea was to try and leave three up against their three when the ball turned over and I think we worked it quite well.”
Verdict
Gerrard will have been feeling a little heat after a poor run of results in the lead up to this one.
Therefore, it will be heartening that a tactical switch paid off for him.
It was no surprise to see Candeias drop out, as it does seem as though his 46 appearances this season are catching up with the £900k-rated winger [Transfermarkt].
However, opting to push Arfield further forward rather than bringing in an out and out winger was a big call.
It certainly paid off, though. Given the performances of Steven Davis and Glen Kamara in midfield, it’s something we could see more often going forward.
