Athletic Club 2-0 Rangers: Tipping point

Morning all, Rangers were knocked out of the Europa League last night by Athletic Club. Losing 2 goals to nil. I don't think much of the game can be analysed in too much detail, but there's definitely some big incidents.

Before the game I wasn't surprised to see Barry opt for the slightly more cautious approach of having Ridvan at right wing back with Tavernier at centre back. This shape has been successful under the interim tenure so far, and this particular backline worked well in Istanbul.

And what a joyous plan it was, until Ridvan went down injured and had to be taken off. The obvious choice was to introduce Nsiala and move Tav out wide. Instead he introduced Connor Barron and forced Diomande to become a wing back with Jefte moving to centre back. It was a mess, and reminded me of what I'd said in the pre match about trying not to disrupt more parts of the team than necessary.

It's probably the first major tactical misstep from the manager in Europe. Unfortunately we had to endure a very disorganised line up until half time. It did look like we'd go in with a clean sheet, until John Souttar caught the back of an Athletic Club player as he entered the box. It was a soft pen, but a penalty nonetheless. Sancet slotted the penalty home and I started to wonder if this team has reached the edge of what it could achieve.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the biggest incident in the first half though. Dessers being pulled down as he tried to reach a through ball in the opposition area. No foul given, seemingly no extensive VAR check (like we saw on Wednesday night in the Bernabeu for a similar incident) and play on was waved.

I'm not going to talk about a grand conspiracy, but if ripping the shirt off someone's back isn't a penalty, even with VAR, then I look forward to some of the tight marking we will see in the competition going forward.

One penalty not given and one awarded and we were on the wrong side of the referee again in this tie. 1-0 down and without really producing too much in the way of attacking play with Dessers struggling to hold the ball up.

The manager tried to correct his poor substitution by introducing Nsiala for Hagi and shuffling the back line again. Obviously nice that he acknowledged the mistake, but given we needed a goal, I'd have been tempted to move to a back 4 rather than taking Hagi off.

We were forced into another change when Balogun went down with a head injury 5 minutes into the half. Igamane was introduced and we were forced to shuffle the pack again.

Overall the tactical approach and reaction felt chaotic from the management team. He's ran out of rabbits to pull out the hat here, and that really showed with how flat the performance was.

Athletic Club are a very good side defensively so I'm not surprised they held us off so well, but it felt like we weren't really willing to risk anything by changing the style.

Near the end of the game Tav switched off and Nico Williams scored a second for the Basques. The tie was well and truly over as honestly we never looked like scoring in the game.

Barry tried to change things by subbing on all the strikers but it didn't change anything really. The game fizzled out as did our Europa league hopes.

I'm happy to draw a line under this interim management groups time here now. We've seen that they can pull off strong performances in big games, and struggle domestically. Just like we've seen all season.

I'll go into detail on my thoughts on the next manager near the end of the season. But let's just remember the highs of our European campaign for now.