A look at the fixtures from Round 32 of the Premiership:
Aberdeen 0 – 3 Rangers
That was damn enjoyable!
If we’re honest, until that Miller screamer, it was a game we were looking likely to have been happy with a draw in – we missed a couple of sitters in the first half (how often do we say that?), but ultimately Aberdeen were the team looking more likely to win it.
One thing we can definitely take away from this game is that Caixinha is happy to be pragmatic in certain games. We had a fair amount of attacking players on the park, but everyone was asked to work hard defensively, with all 11 players defending at set pieces as well. The result more than justified the means, and it was nice to see us win an away game through earning the right to play rather than expecting the opposition to let us do so.
The game was a battle more than a spectacle, summed up in 2 minutes by Garner hitting the deck for next to nothing after a clash with Ryan Jack – yes, Jack put his head towards him, but let’s not kid on it was anything more than embarrassing – and some very agricultural tackles from the Aberdeen players. So far this season, our team have really struggled in games of that nature, but players like Holt, Bates, Wilson and Miller refused to let that happen yesterday. After a somewhat nervous start, we created the best chances of the first half, and should have went in ahead.
If not for Foderingham in the second half, though, we’d have been a couple behind before we got the opener. Good saves from McLean and Rooney, along with a real command of his box during set pieces, kept the game at 0-0 during a 30 minute spell where we struggled to get out of our own half. The opening goal came from a touch of luck, with a deflected pass falling to Waghorn for yet another seemingly-spurned chance, before Miller smashed in a half-volley that’s pretty much impossible to describe and do justice to.
After that, Aberdeen crumbled, with some awful play at the back leading to Dodoo playing in Miller for a second, and then Dodoo scoring on the break mere minutes after I’d told everyone on Twitter he’s nowhere near ready yet.
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After a frustrating season, and a seemingly unending run of poor away results and performances, yesterday felt great. But much like how I didn’t overreact to the Kilmarnock result in midweek, I won’t get too excited by this one. As Caixinha has intimated in his post-match interviews, it’s about consistency, and we’ve got loads to prove in that regard.
Elsewhere in the league, Celtic consigned Kilmarnock to the bottom 6 with a 3-1 win, and saved us the prospect of a third away trip there. Thistle didn’t need to win to keep that 6th spot, but did so anyway, with Kris Doolan continuing some fine form scoring in a 1-0 win. Hamilton and Ross County drew 1-1, which worked out ok for both as Inverness lost 3-0 at home to St Johnstone, the latter being our real challenge for third place now. The other game saw Hearts win 1-0 at home against Dundee, and as both sides have had some poor results recently, Cathro will have been glad to take a little heat off of himself.
The top 6 is now decided, and we’ve got 4 home games and 2 away games left in our 6 league games (don’t be surprised if a 3rd away trip to either Aberdeen or Hearts happens there though). St Johnstone are 6 points behind us, but yesterday pulled us even further ahead of them in terms of goal difference, so you have to fancy our chances of at least finishing in our current position. Some will still hold hope for second place, but 9 points and 22 goals of a difference with only 6 games left is just too big a gap to expect that.
In the meantime though, a couple of nice wins against certain teams (we all know who I mean) in the remaining league games would go a long way to keeping up the excitement levels for the next campaign.
Give us a tweet on @rangersnewsuk with your thoughts on the weekend’s action!