
Rangers 6-0 Kilmarnock: Back to basics
- Adam Bortkiewicz
- Dec 5, 2024
- 4 min read
Morning everyone, I don't think I'm the only one that was surprised at that result. Given the empty seats in the stand, I imagine many felt alot of apathy towards the game. Weather and the fact it's midweek needs to be considered too, but you'd normally get more in for a game last night if people were actually excited to watch the team.
Many were surprised at the line-up, including me. I didn't think he'd want to drop Bajrami and I certainly didn't expect a switch to 442. I'm not sure if this was a case of wiping the tactics board clean and just saying "what good players do we have? Where do they play?" then building the formation from that. Or was this a small tactical tweak in the grand scheme of things? 4231 is only one position away from 442 after all. I think I'd prefer the first one because it shows a bit more flexibility than a slight tweak and relying on player ability to fill in the gaps.
Before we continue on with the coverage, did anyone else feel like we were watching Gerrard's Rangers team? Not style wise, but seeing Hagi and Tav so heavily involved early on felt like such a throwback, not seen them play together properly since the title winning season after all.
But that gets to the end of my contribution, I mentioned apathy towards the game earlier, and I was actually so apathetic towards the game that I saw the first 10 minutes and then played 7-a-side. So I'll hand it over to returning guest reporter Jack to give us the breakdown:
Hello folks, Jack Graham here again covering for Adam in a short analyis/review of the game last night against the second best team in Ayrshire.
Rangers albeit looking far more in control of a game than I have seen in recent memory still manage to bore the life out of me, which is par for the course when watching our team in recent memory. This was proven true when we only recorded our first shot on target come the 37th minute, but for our fortune this actually created the first of SIX (yes six you read that right) goals this game.
A quick throw in to Hagi see's a beautifully weighted ball to the late running Tavernier who slots the ball away for his second goal of the season. The second half fully shows Rangers full steam ahead as we storm the gates of Mordor and record 5 goals in the second half.
The 2nd goal features Hagi zipping a low cross past McCrorie into Danilo scoring a goal that I am sure every fan is hoping will spur him on to start recording a few more for the team. The 3rd goal came two minutes later as Rangers press the Kilmarnock mistake with Hamza Igamane scoring a 20 yard beauty.
A man of the match performance from Raskin saw him taking to the dancefloor and strutting his stuff as he moves so gracefully past half the Kilmarnock team, a neat pass to Cerny saw a touch and finish into the bottom corner, the 4th goal is secured.
Now I don't know how many feel like this, albeit with a comfortable result, Danilo, Igamane and Cerny got subbed off for Bajrami (no complaints), Dessers (thank god we are already 4 up) and Dowell (why?).
Dessers did however surprise everybody only a few moments into his introduction to the match as a ball from Jefte was put in the back of the net by Dessers, who then scored the last goal 13 minutes later from a Tavernier cross - it is almost as like Adam's first article for The Near and Far explains the effectiveness Dessers could have as an impact substitute.
Some interesting titbits is that this is the biggest Scottish Premiership win since our 8-0 hammering of Hamilton in 2020(alongside our 6-0 win against the Staggies this season), but I think even more interesting than that is Rangers had only recorded 18 goals all season before this game - really puts into perspective how dreek we have actually been.
I think as Rangers fans we can be very happy with the performance and result, but also be cautious in the fact that we could go up to Dingwall and ruin any good work we make and draw 0-0. The food for thought when it comes to the game will be the line-up, surely two strikers is the way to go again?
A final note from me is of course going to be about our manager, he was full of praise for the team and rightly so, however I feel he has made a rod for his own back with some of the comments. Ross County is going to be a real test to if we can keep momentum going with Spurs and Celtic to be played next week, if not, the fans will start to turn more than they already have. Hope we all enjoyed the watch anyway, I know I certainly did
So that's all from myself and Jack, I enjoyed his write-up and it's definitely good to hear from someone who was watching the game live. I've seen plenty of praise for the win and performance, and not much mention of the slow start to the game in terms of attacking play.
We know that to succeed in Scotland these days you need to go to places like Dingwall and play your game, not worry about the opposition. So I agree that we need to continue with this approach, but we will see if it's just a flash in the pan performance.
Have a good day everyone and enjoy the rest of your week.
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