Rangers went with the two up front against Livingston, but were we right in calling for it?
We like to own up to when we get things wrong on Rangers News. Personally, I’m happy to hold my hands up to crying out for the two up top.
Steven Gerrard duly obliged against Livingston when he chose Alfredo Morelos to partner Kyle Lafferty. And it didn’t work.
In fact, it really didn’t work.
Rangers were lacklustre going forward, and there was barely any combination play between the two front-men.
In recent weeks, Rangers have looked extremely impressive with just the one up front. Be it Morelos or Lafferty, either/or have looked good when playing the lone striker role.
That’s now two occasions in particular, however, where the pair haven’t worked together.
At Celtic Park, neither did anything of note as they failed to get into the game. Yesterday at the Toni Macaroni Arena, we saw exactly the same thing.
On paper, Morelos and Lafferty look like the perfect combination. Lafferty is a tall target-man, whilst Morelos likes to get in behind defences and thrives off of good service. Added to that, it was thought that Lafferty could help tame Morelos’ attitude given he’s also had previous experiences of bad temperament.
Both playing the same role
Lafferty is now a much more mature player, but Morelos isn’t. It also doesn’t help that both are trying to play the same game. Each of them are dropping deep and trying to collect the ball, but in truth the Gers need one of them to play the role of penalty-box striker.
With the aerial presence of the Northern Irishman, Morelos should be thriving with him. Yet, for some reason, it just doesn’t have the same effect when put into practice.
Lafferty, in particular, isn’t winning anywhere near enough headers. His hold-up play since arriving at Ibrox hasn’t been as good as we would’ve anticipated. This was notable against Livi, as he failed to do enough when the ball was launched up to him.
Morelos needs service if he’s to be used to his full potential. With Lafferty, we’re not seeing that build-up play between the pair even nearly enough.
So far the experiment of two up front isn’t working. Granted, I personally called for it, but so far it just isn’t having any positive effect on the team going forward.
Would you change the system to just the lone striker after yesterday’s display?
