Tonight, Rangers face Dundee at Dens Park. The home side are currently bottom of the league, having not won in 6 games. Rangers are coming off the back of a horrendous second-half performance against Hamilton which led to yet another home defeat. Friday night games can often have a strange feel, and this one could be flat if both teams are unable to find some confidence.
DUNDEE LAST 5 LEAGUE RESULTS
Partick (Away), 2-1 defeat
Motherwell (Home), 1-0 defeat
Hamilton (Home), 3-1 defeat
Hibernian (Away), 2-1 defeat
Kilmarnock (Home), 0-0 draw
The 0-0 draw against Kilmarnock last weekend broke a very poor run of defeats. Neil McCann is under pressure to turn things around, and will see tonight as a game he can try to channel the extra motivation and get some confidence back to his squad. They haven’t scored a lot of goals in the league so far, and seem to score a high proportion of headers. Looking at their recent matches, they also concede a number of goals from crosses. They’re likely to go with a 4-5-1 shape tonight to try and stop balls coming in from wide. Their top scorer, A-Jay Leitch-Smith, is a relatively new signing, and the likes of Moussa and El Bakhtaoui haven’t hit the heights expected of them.
The results for Dundee, whilst poor, haven’t really seen them heavily defeated often. They’ll have some belief that things are set to turn. Given the Rangers result last weekend, they’ll be encouraged that this will start from tonight.
From a Rangers perspective, there’s not a lot of changes expected. Alves, Dorrans and Wallace are all still unavailable. A tweet from Fabio Cardoso yesterday suggested he won’t be playing. Despite media reports of Pena being involved, or Morelos possibly being dropped, I don’t expect either will happen. The only change from last weekend is likely to be Declan John for Lee Hodson.
PREDICTED LINE UP
Foderingham
Tavernier
McCrorie
Wilson
John
Candeias
Jack
Holt
Windass
Miller
Morelos
It’ll be interesting to see what position Miller is asked to play. When he came back into the side against Hearts, he was clearly playing as a striker. In the games since then, he’s been in midfield, dropping deep to try and dictate the play. That plainly didn’t work last weekend. With Dundee seemingly struggling to defend crosses, the approach will most likely be to get a number of those into the box. Most will come from the right, as always, and with John back in the team we’ll have a better balance on the left.
MORE RANGERS STORIES
It’s now been 10 games since Morelos got a goal. It’s not uncommon for young strikers to go on barren spells. Last weekend, for the first time, we saw how low his confidence is and how his performance has been affected. Any sort of goal for him would be very welcome. We’ll also get to see how McCrorie reacts to a bad mistake last weekend, with days to think it over. Dundee like to play expansive football, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them concede possession and try to play on the break. The 4-1 defeat at Ibrox will have given them some idea of the dangers of playing too openly. Ryan Jack will be key to keeping us on the front foot if we are given a lot of the ball.
With the length of time being taken to appoint the next manager, there’s a lot of uncertainty on the pitch and in the stands. The away support will, as always, be excellent, but nervous. If Rangers don’t start the game well, that will only be exacerbated.
For a prediction, I’m going to go 2-0 for Rangers, but not through a great performance. I think this is one we’ll grind out.