New Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s first match proved to be a successful one as the team defeated Sparta Prague 2-0 at Ibrox to secure second place in Europa League Group A.
With the result, and Lyon doing us a favour by beating Brondby 3-1, we now move into the Europa League playoff round.
After the dreadful result against Hibs in the League Cup semi-final, many expected Giovanni van Bronckhorst to spring mass-change and drop a few underperformers.
So, it was perhaps a surprise when only two changes were announced, with Bassey and Hagi coming in for Balogun and Arfield, with the latter perhaps unlucky to miss out after scoring against Hibs.
This may allude to a clean slate mentality regarding the squad. Whatever happened in the past is done and van Bronckhorst is looking to the future.
It just goes to show what a new manager coming in can do for the squad, with arguably two of our poorer performers recently having excellent matches.
Allan McGregor kept a clean sheet, making four key saves to ensure the three points went to the Ibrox side.
Alfredo Morelos scored twice and looked like a totally different player from the previous few weeks. The Colombian is perhaps the one player, that if Giovanni van Bronckhorst can get him back firing consistently, will make all the difference in the title race.
This was a solid performance from the team, and it was exactly the response the manager would have been after following the Hampden debacle.
A clean slate for everyone could be all that is required for the team to start performing to their potential – let’s hope last night was just the beginning.
Following his performance last night, Giovanni van Bronckhorst had plenty of praise for Allan McGregor.
