Rangers 0-2 Dynamo Kyiv: Season Defined

As I sat in the stadium yesterday (with Jack) waiting for the game to start, I'd somehow decided we were likely to get through. Because, dear reader, I had a great list of clever titles I could have used for victory, titles so witty and funny you'd have been left in stitches for hours just from a single glance. All the while coasting along in a post victory glow.

But instead, those titles are on the scrapheap, and no one will ever see them, not one person will even utter a slight titter at one of them. And I can only blame the Glasgow Rangers for that.

If you haven't heard, Rangers crashed out of the Champions league at the first time of asking, following a 2-0 "Home" defeat to Dynamo Kyiv at Hampden last night. And there's almost too much to cover.

Let's start with the easy bit to analyse, the first half.

"PRESS" shouted the man behind me with 2 minutes and 33 seconds on the clock, it did feel much like the first leg in that the team did seem keen to restrict Kyiv's playing out from the back. It felt like we were much less successful in this endeavour than the first leg, which I attributed to 2 factors: 1. Our press in the first leg wasn't actually as organised as it seemed to be and this was exploited this time 2. The impressive performance of Mykavhko at the back for Kyiv, who seemed absolutely unflustered by any level of press imposed.

I felt like everyone had both good and bad to show in the first half, McAusland had some good runs at times, but also showed some weird decision making and didn't help Tav out with the positions he took up. Tav got bypassed so easily in the first half it reminded me of Gary Neville saying he knew exactly the moment when he should retire. Then at times he was like the Tav of old on the front foot, winning the ball and getting crosses into the area.

I could say similar for every player, but the main issue is that's not a very consistent level of performance to win you games, especially not really important ones against good teams.

I thought the whole game the players had this obsession with switching the ball early when we had space on the break. Jefte did it early on and we surrendered possession in a dangerous area, Dessers miscontrolled a ball from Diomande when I think Dio should have carried the ball further and waited for support. The only time we kept the ball on the ground for a break, we nearly had McAusland in on goal but for a good intervention at the back from the Ukrainians. The fact it was so consistent makes me think it was encouraged by the manager, if so it's one of his many poor calls in that game.

We had one decent chance in the first half after Tav and McAusland had a good combination on the right hand side, McAusland crossed, Tav miskicked and Lawrence miscontrolled and that was that. Half time came shortly after.

Now to the second half, first point to address is the refereeing decision that killed the tie. Jefte received what I thought was a soft booking given what some of the Kyiv players had got away with (blatant shirt pull to stop a break and late kick on McAusland) in the first half. And sitting at half time, I did say to Jack that I'd look to sub him because you never know. Yet somehow, we did know, not long into the second period and Jefte received a second yellow for daring to win a header. There was really no denying the impact that had on the crowd and the game.

At Ibrox after a decision perceived as unjust I've seen the crowd furious to such an extent it lifts the team to get it over the line. At Hampden that wasn't possible.

The game settled into an uncomfortable pattern after that, Kyiv pressure followed by a brief Rangers break that 1 in 5 times led to a half chance. Never a rate at which you will win a game.

Cerny had been introduced at half time for McAusland and I think he was really caught out by having to play with 10 men. It's clear that Cerny isn't the type to studiously come back and track his fullback for 90 mins, he's the type of wide player to wait in the space the full back leaves behind because he knows he can hurt teams from there. Unfortunately with 10 it's the first type of winger you need, and he looked a bit lost positionally out of possession, which I don't blame him for.

Sterling came on for Diomande to give us some legs and ball winning but he didn't really affect the game at all. Ridvan was stretchered off and Davies replaced him at left back.

Then the goal came, the ball was cut back to the edge and the shot came through a crowd, Butland was unsighted and it was in. Everyone knows how tough it is to come back from a goal down with 10 men, but an equaliser would have taken us to extra time and I didn't think we needed to throw the kitchen sink at it yet. So you can imagine my surprise when Propper was lining up in the front 3 from kick off, it felt naive, it felt way too early and I was immediately worried. My worries were justified when we went long from kick-off, Propper didn't win the header, we didn't win the second ball and then Kyiv switched it to Tav's side, they played the 3 on 3 well and made it 2-0.

At that moment it really felt like we were done. Nothing happened afterwards, hilariously(depressingly?) Propper stayed upfront and didn't effect the game in the final third at all. Might as well have subbed David James on upfront.

I've already referenced the manager's set up and tactical choices off-hand but I want to address them properly. It felt like once again we played with no proper style, gone is the box midfield and exciting wide play we saw in the great run of form that put us top last season. The decision not to start Cerny was wild given his contribution at the weekend, even with fitness concerns. What was more baffling, was the decision to leave Lawrence on until we went 2 down, when he contributed NOTHING, I wanted him off at half time.

On the board, the squad we had going into these qualifiers was nothing short of shambolic and if we'd got into the play off round, there's no doubt we'd get absolutely horsed by Salzburg. If we are going to salvage anything from this season we need serious moves to be made in the market and that doesn't seem to be happening right now.

I've already taken up too much of your time with this rant/match report so I'm not even going to address the Danilo stuff. Needless to say I'm not sure what he needs to do to come off the bench, score 100 goals in training? Cure cancer? Achieve world peace? Whatever it is, I hope he does it soon.

Try and have a good rest of the week everyone.