Hearts 0-0 Rangers: Atleast the pies are alright

Deja Vu, Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, insert a film about a day/time repeating of your choice.

I don't want to make my first match review too negative, but I think after putting myself through 90 minutes of torture on Saturday, it might need to be.

It felt to me like the first 5 or so minutes of the game really set the tone. Whenever Hearts had the ball they looked direct and wanted to get at Rangers, they found a lot of joy in going short to Shanklands feet all game and getting runners off him. Whereas Rangers were slow and ponderous in possession, lacking any kind of invention or zip to their play.

It felt like more most of the game Rangers backline was unsure of itself, especially the two centre backs. This might have been a result of the disjointed midfield performance, which we will get to, but I found it incredibly frustrating to watch Souttar/Davies hesitate whenever the ball was near their area of the pitch. There was a real lack of willingness to engage with the ball or the man and this led to the backline dropping deep whenever the Hearts attackers picked up the ball, especially in the first half, this culminated in a short period in which Hearts seemed to always have a free man at the edge of our box and had us penned in as a result.

I'd say that it's really hard to remember a Rangers team struggling to break the sustained pressure of a Scottish team outside of Celtic, but I'd be lying. I can remember it happening in our last league game, away at Hearts. Much has been made of Rangers transfer business, or lack thereof, but I don't think you'll see a more fitting encapsulation of Rangers fans frustrations as the starting line-up following the "summer rebuild" was released... with one new player in the starting line-up.

I don't think you can expect different results with 90% of the same players starting. It should be noted that we have Robin Propper to come into the starting line-up (hopefully he does so on Tuesday night). Cerny was a bright spark off the bench and it seemed like he had a real urge to get forward at every opportunity, even if he was hampered by his teammates passing the ball behind him (looking at you Tom Lawrence). This brings me to the main positive from the match, aside from the pies for the match-going fans, Connor Barron.

Rangers' midfield has been crying out for an injection of youth for a few years now, we got that partially with Diomande, but Barron seems like he might be the perfect addition and a real net positive from the summer window. Despite his youth and inexperience when it comes to playing for a big club, he was fearless in the face of Hearts pressure, constantly dropping in to receive the ball to get us on the front foot, he drove forward and produced a great save from Zander Clark from distance. Despite all this, he was subbed for Dowell when we needed a goal, despite Diomande and Lawrence being the passengers in that midfield for most of the game.

Dessers had a typically frustrating afternoon in-front of goal, missing two great chances he created himself with a great touch and movement, you can read my thoughts on Dessers here. We were indebted to Butland for a few saves, although uncharacteristically he fumbled a shot following Balogun's intervention and we had Barron to be thankful as he blocked the follow-up effort.

Overall it felt like it was another frustrating afternoon for Rangers under Clement and with the same core of the squad we've seen fail many times before. I eagerly await more moves in the transfer market, both in and out, and hope that we see some real changes to the squad or it will be a very very long season.