Rangers knew that three points was a must when they took the long trip up the east coast to face Aberdeen.
Away form under Philippe Clement in the Scottish Premiership has been abysmal and it is a problem that the manager has to get right if he is to taste success with this squad, if he doesn’t, the outcome will be inevitable – and the clock is ticking.
The SPFL did Rangers a favour by not giving Aberdeen this fixture at the weekend and a full week to prepare, with Clement’s men already acclimatised to mid-week and 8pm kick-offs, but it was the home side who looked up for it more and took all three points.
Aberdeen come out the traps as Rangers caught sleeping
After a scrappy opening 10 minutes, it was Aberdeen who got a foothold in the game with the simplest of tactics – direct, long balls over the top.
The first warning was when Leon Balogun just got a toe to stop Ester Sokler running clean through on Jack Butland and James Tavernier – twice – wasn’t strong enough against Duk, leaving John Souttar and Butland to bail him out.
Rangers didn’t heed the warning and Aberdeen went 1-0 in front through determined work from Jack MacKenzie on the left to turn Nicolas Raskin and Nicky Devlin providing the finish.
Balogun and Souttar both undoing their earlier good work by holding hands and Neraysho Kasanwirjo caught ball watching instead of checking his shoulder.
A lesson in how to defend crosses it wasn’t.
Things go from bad to worse for Rangers
With Rangers looking like they just wanted to make it to half-time, a lengthy VAR check for handball saw John Beaton sent to the monitor.
Ridiculously, he pointed to the spot proving that the pressure Beaton is under when it comes to Rangers does have an influence.
There were two hand balls in one phase of play but Tom Lawrence had his hand down by his side and Souttar’s attempt to head the ball clear was affected by the deflection off his teammate – Souttar also had his arm in a natural position.
Justice was done, and Butland made the save.
Rangers robbed of first-half equaliser
With half-time approaching, Rangers started to pose a threat with Nedim Bajrami getting into some good positions.
It looked like he had grabbed himself an assist for Ross McCausland only for the goal to be disallowed due to Cyriel Dessers being offside in the build-up.
It looked very, very tight when the lines were drawn.
Haf-time score: 1-0.
Rangers finally get going in the second-half
Similar to the opening period, there wasn’t much quality, however, the introduction of Dujon Sterling saw an improved attacking impetus.
Rangers were, at least, trying to build some pressure and won a series of corners and free-kicks, Sterling and Balogun both missing free headers to tie the scores.
Moment of magic from Nedim Bajrami
Rangers had been the better team for the first 20 minutes of the second half and should already have been level.
They got their reward when Nedim Bajrami took on three Aberdeen players to fire low and hard into the far corner, leaving the keeper stranded and to score his second goal for the club.
Rangers capitulate again with defensive horror show
With Rangers looking the most likely to score and a series of half chances missed, Aberdeen scored with what was one of their first attacks of the second period.
Connor Barron failed to react quickly enough to the overlap of MacKenzie and Tavernier failed to deal with the resulting cross – as it had done all night, the ball didn’t break kindly and it ended up in the net.
Rangers huff and puff but run out of ideas
With time running out, the quality didn’t improve and neither did Rangers.
Rather than continuing to try and get in behind Aberdeen, crosses were thrown in from deep to no avail.
Philippe Clement’s away record with Rangers this season makes for very unpleasant reading and is the sort to get managers sacked.
Fans are tired of excuses and whatever Clement is trying to do isn’t working.
