Dundee 1-1 Rangers: No game plan, no fight, no more Clement

Here we are again, I started my first match report of the season (0-0 with Hearts away) with a Groundhog Day reference. Little did I know how accurate that was, except this is the version of Groundhog day with a bald Belgian instead of Bill Murray, and instead of trying to learn and better himself it's just 2 hours of him trying to drive out of Punxsutawney and not realising he's stuck.

Firstly I've got to face the disappointing news that I've woken up and Clement is still Rangers manager. Hoping that changes while I'm writing this in "breaking news" fashion, but I find that unlikely.

As I mentioned at the start of my preview, my day yesterday was better when I thought Rangers weren't playing. That statement really rang true when the final whistle went on another away game in which Philippe Clement's Rangers dropped points.

To flash back to before the game, the line-up was released and the biggest surprise was a start for Nsiala over Leon King. I tweeted about it pre-match but it's a damning indictment of how King is viewed by the current manager when someone who hasn't played a senior minute is selected ahead of him. If it wasn't for how light we are on defenders I'd expect to see him departing in this window.

So the game kicked off and it didn't take long for us to fall behind. Dundee got in behind and the team passed up 2/3 chances to clear the ball, Jefte got sucked into the middle, the ball ended up on the by-line and was cut back for Adewumi to finish well past Kelly.

1-0 down and I don't think anyone was surprised. Was there a response from Rangers? Not really. We meandered around with no consistent plan for working the ball forward and putting Dundee under pressure. The ball was continually switched over to the left and that was about as creative as we got. Despite our domination of the ball, Dundee looked more likely to add to their lead, they consistently got the ball into our third and had an attempt while we struggled to produce a single chance.

By the 30th minute I'd taken no notes because nothing had happened. Our use of the ball was hilariously poor. Dundee probably couldn't believe how easy they had it. We looked extremely weak when defending set pieces too, Kelly punched a second ball he should have easily collected.

Our equaliser came out of nothing and reflected just how little thought goes into Rangers attacking play at the moment. Kelly caught a deflected shot from Tiffoney, he quickly looked long for Hagi, who played Igamane through. At this point it was very much panic stations for Dundee at the back, defenders throwing themselves to the ground while the young forward played the ball through to Cerny. The pass looked a little overhit but Cerny showed his composure as he let the ball roll and yet another defender go to ground before finishing comfortably on his right foot.

1-1 and the goal reminded me of Lacazette equalising for Arsenal against Southampton when Unai Emery was very much on his way out there. I really don't think the players looked that bothered, they hate what's going on just as much as we do, and it's very much a case of them being led to ruin by Clement currently.

An equaliser in the first half, could we build on that? No, the goal did absolutely nothing because it came from Kelly's quick thinking and Igamane and Cerny working well together. It wasn't coached, there wasn't a pattern there, we got an opportunity and some of the good players took it.

Just a word on it because I have it in my notes, I don't know if I can take it if Yilmaz comes inside from right back and shoots again. He had 6 shots against Celtic, and he keeps doing it. The manager has definitely told him that's his best move, so now we have two left footed players on the right that want to come into the half space and shoot. The problem is, only one of them is good at it.

We got to half time and Hagi made way for Matondo. 10/10 for this, Clement must be messing with us at this point, and if that's the case he really knows how to wind me up. Hagi had another poor game, he was all over the pitch trying to make things happen, similar to the Hibs game, but he was a net negative at times. Did that mean I wanted to see Matondo instead of him? No, especially when Oscar Cortes was sitting on the bench waiting to make an impact.

Second half I took 5 notes. They actually give a pretty succinct view of the half.

"Offside goal? But the way it's defended is absolutely abysmal from everybody"

"Danilo on etc but we just kind of play it to the forwards and wait"

"Space available is hilarious cause we've just thrown on all the attackers"

"Dio shot from nothing that could have won it. But doesn't change anything"

"Nsiala long ball near the end a symptom the disease that is Clement"

The last note is especially poignant given the way the game went. We had all of our attackers on the pitch hanging around the Dundee area, we hadn't created a chance because it was Diomande and Bajrami operating as a pivot so no one could actually get the ball forward convincingly. The ball ended up with our 19 year old defender, and you can see the managers instructions come to the young Frenchman's mind "Jouer la balle longue" and long the ball went, out of play.

Let me say that I think that game may have been the worst performance I've seen from his team since we returned to the top flight. Make no mistake, in terms of ability the 16/17 and 17/18 squads were worse. But even in the truly terrible games we witnessed in that era, there was more urgency and more of a game plan than we saw yesterday.

When you look at it in plain terms, Philippe Clement has our current squad playing just as poorly as the teams of that era. Except he's done that on a significantly higher wage than the managers we had then, and also with a squad easily 3 times as expensive.

In business terms, if any manager or leadership figure did that, they'd be out on the street without a second thought from head office. And I don't think it would matter if he said that he was backed "200%". For the 3rd time in as many weeks... over to you Patrick Stewart.