Livingston boss Davie Martindale is one of the most likeable men in the Scottish Premiership but he’s indirectly rubbed salt in the wounds of Rangers boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
The writing appears to be on the wall for the Dutchman after a season-long run of several woeful and uninspiring performances culminated in a weak and tepid 1-1 home draw with Livingston.
With Rangers now dropping further behind in the title race, and the fans beginning to turn, the pressure is really on Van Bronckhorst to turn it around with a tough three-game run of Napoli (A), Aberdeen (H) and Ajax (H) to come.
Everyone who has had the discomfort of watching Rangers at their worst this season can see the one-dimensional approach to the game is not working and fans genuinely believe Gio is a stubborn man bereft of tactical ideas at present.
There have been complaints regarding a lack of identity since the Dutchman came into the club and these have not been helped by a series of slow, laboured and uninspired performances.
Davie Martindale rubs Livingston salt in Giovanni van Bronckhorst Rangers wounds
Against Livingston Rangers once again toiled but in the post-match Davie Martindale – a former career criminal who is in his first full-time job in management – revealed that the game went exactly as he predicted.
Yes, that’s right, Davie Martindale outthought and outsmarted 106-cap Netherlands legend and ex-Feyenoord manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst in his own backyard. And he barely had to think about it.
“The game went how I envisaged it to go,” said Martindale.
“We knew the areas of the park where we would give Rangers possession. Up until the sending-off, I think we were in control.
“It may not have looked like that because we gave up possession. But we knew we could deal with cross balls from wide areas. We stopped them. We limited them to very little. We knew would probably get very few opportunities ourselves and we would have to take them. We did that very early on.
“Bar probably the strike from Lundstram and a save from our keeper, I don’t think we had a lot to worry about. With 11 men, I genuinely think we would have picked up three points.”
With all-due respect to him, Davie Martindale isn’t exactly Carlo Ancelotti but if the Livingston boss is branding Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst this predictable, then we clearly have a problem.
In fact, Martindale was so confident in his side’s ability to deal with Rangers relentless crossing, the Lions batted 72 or Rangers’ 73 crosses away this afternoon.
Only one of them – the looping effort from Ryan Kent – resulted in a goal as John Lundstram emphatically volleyed home an injury time equaliser.
Meanwhile, is this the one major difference setting Rangers and Celtic apart this season?
