A picture paints a thousand words and one in particular from the weekend showed just how ineffective Borna Barisic has become for Rangers and why Michael Beale has to pick Ridvan Yilmaz.
In a game where we dominated possession, the Croatian international was barely seen in the final third and chose to take a back seat instead of driving the attack down his flank.
Borna Barisic is one of our most experienced players but if he is the player who is going to be tasked with providing width for Rangers on the left, Michael Beale could be in trouble.
How Borna Barisic is holding Rangers attack back
The average positions data and pass map provided by StatsBomb does not look good for Borna Barisic playing on Rangers left.
He wasn’t the only one who had a stinker at Rugby Park, however, with chances few and far between, his role was an important one.
On too many occasions, midfielders would drive towards Kilmarnock’s defence looking for options and there was nothing on our left-hand side.
Whenever either Abdallah Sima or Sam Lammers tucked inside, Borna Barisic should have been overlapping and providing the Rangers attack with width.
When there was a teammate taking up position on the wing, he should have offered an inside run to drag defenders away from the middle.
Instead, he would stand and wait for the ball to come to him.
All this did was let the Kilmarnock defence get settled and give our forwards little chance of succeeding, Borna Barisic has been in Scotland long enough to know what to expect playing these sides for Rangers.
Compare and contrast with James Tavernier who was, at least, trying to make something happen on the other side.
Ridvan Yilmaz still has a lot to learn, but he at least offers something in the opponents half and tries to make things happen.
He is capable of beating players 1v1 and can get crosses in too.
The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
If Borna Barisic continues to get picked for Rangers, Michael Beale can’t be surprised if we continue to drop points and look toothless in attack.
