Michael Beale promised fast, attacking football when he took over as Rangers boss but his style of play after nearly a year in charge was no better than his predecessor.
Slow build up, horizontal and backwards passing, no width and hopeful crosses from deep was the norm and the strikers had to feed off scraps.
With Michael Beale gone, the win over St Mirren saw a glimpse of progress but, speaking on BBC Sportscene, Michael Stewart highlighted exactly what Rangers need to do to become more clinical.
Michael Beale exit should see new Rangers game plan
When Zak Lovelace beat his man and got to the byline to fire the cross that led to Rangers penalty, it felt like the first time we had seen this all season.
Providing analysis on Sportscene, Stewart gave an accurate assessment of what state Michael Beale has left Rangers game plan in and what it should involve under the new manager.
‘I don’t think it’s something that Rangers have done enough of in terms of getting behind the opposition.
“And it’s exactly what Zak Lovelace looked to do on a number of occasions, get to the byline and get behind the opposition.
“The difficulty for defenders at this moment, is that they are facing their own goal.
“There’s so often where we’ve looked at Rangers throwing balls into the box, it’s normally from 25-30 yards out where defends can look at the ball and their facing away from goal and they can deal with it.
“Once you get to the byline and you’re firing balls across the face like that, defenders are facing their own goal.
“That doesn’t happen enough for Rangers, getting to the byline.”
Michael Beale refused to take Rangers handbrake offf
Compare Michael Beale’s tactics at Rangers to the manager’s he faced at Celtic both in Old Firm derbies and against other teams.
Too slow and too obvious.
Stewart is right, look at the games against Kilmarnock and Aberdeen, it was too easy for them to just sit in and face crosses.
Getting behind teams causes them more problems.
As with the penalty decision against St Mirren, Lovelace getting behind and firing a cross back across goal caused panic from the goalkeeper and defence.
Additionally, if it wasn’t a penalty, Abdallah Sima would have scored at the back post.
Players like Ridvan Yilmaz and Rabbi Matondo will help with this sort of tactic, both with their pace and desire to run in behind defenders.
Looking at the names of the managers tipped to replace Michael Beale, Rangers could be about to become a lot less predictable.
