Rangers vs Hibernian preview: We all dream of a board of Davie Weirs

Morning everyone, Rangers return to Ibrox looking for their first win in 4 home games against the form team in the league, Hibernian. The 4 home losses are spread across two incumbent managers, caveated by one of those losses ending with Europa League progression on penalties. It goes without saying that Barry Ferguson will be absolutely desperate to win in front of the home support, like he did so many times in his playing career.

Before we get into the game itself, there's been rumours from a few places, nowhere official, that Davie Weir may return to the club as Director of Football. This comes just a month after he was heavily linked with moving to Everton to be their technical director.

If he somehow returned to Rangers for a third time it would be an incredible coup. His reputation as technical director at Brighton is flawless and he's been a massive part of their youth development and current position in the Premier League.

Weir was sacked, alongside then manager Mark Warburton, back in 2017 before the arrival of Pedro Caixinha. There was talk that this created some animosity between the board and Weir. Given this, his return would likely be part of the new ownership regime.

I'm certainly not counting my chickens though, everyone in football knows how well Brighton are run. So it would take something special to 1, get them to leave such an impressively run club for Rangers and 2, beat the richer clubs that we would inevitably be competing with to his signature.

There was some positive news regarding summer transfers as it's been reported that Robin Propper will be heading back to the Netherlands in the summer. He arrived as the signing that was going to replace Connor Goldson and bring some experience and leadership to the backline. He did neither of these things, and it certainly didn't help that he struggled with the physicality in Scottish Football. Allegedly the fee we paid for him, initially reported to be 1.5m pounds, is actually an eye-watering £2.7m. That's an insane use of our very limited resources. However, his reputation in the Netherlands is still very reputable, so there are a number of clubs looking to acquire his services. Hopefully that means we can recoup some of that massive outlay.

Turning towards today's game, Hibs will absolutely fancy their chances of handing Rangers their 5th loss in a row at Ibrox. We've conceded at least twice in every game under Barry Ferguson barring Fenerbahce away. As aforementioned, we have lost every home game under Barry too. Hibs are unbeaten in 15 league games, winning 10 and drawing 5 (including a 3-3 draw with Rangers at Easter Road where they came from behind twice).

For me, the heart of the issue with Rangers' defensive record in recent months has been the level of intensity in the first 15 minutes of games. In so many games it's felt like we need to concede to lift the tempo, or quite often we'd concede and not lift the tempo until half time. That can be a psychological, tactical or physical issue.

The two games where the approach married up with a good start have been Celtic and Fenerbahce away. The key feature of both of these games has been the way Rangers have grabbed territory early on by sitting high up the pitch, I hate to use the tired cliche, but Rangers earned the right to play.

Hibs will likely match Rangers up with a 3 at the back formation today. Hopefully our switch to a 3 will help us prepare for that threat, especially given the 2 home league losses have come against teams lining up in that style.

Cerny isn't likely to be back today, so Barry has to consider how he fields a forward line that doesn't look to shrink the pitch by coming inside. That was the key issue against Dundee, especially in the first half. Given our limited options it might be the case that Igamane and Dessers need to start with a firm reminder that they need to look to stretch the Hibs back 3 by running the channels.

In the second half of the Dundee game we saw Bailey Rice playing as the 6 to give the team a bit of balance in midfield. I'm not sure this was a roaring success despite the result turning in our favour. Rice did fine, Neil McCann said the other day that he actually took a knock and played on so he's clearly got the right mentality to play for this team. But for me the issue was that in pushing Raskin up the pitch, we actually made it more difficult to progress the ball into Dundee's third. Raskin's strength on the ball as a midfielder is his ability to move the ball from deep, often through his ball carrying. He's not adept at receiving on the half turn and moving us into space (that's more Diomande's game), which is what we asked him to do in the second half.

For all his flaws Tom Lawrence made the difference in that number 8 role last week by turning and moving the ball forward quickly. That doesn't mean he should start, especially given his physical limitations, but I hope it means we don't miscast Raskin again in this match.

Hibs have a few in-form players. Triantis in midfield has been fantastic at evading pressure and giving Hibs a midfield presence in the final third, we struggled to track runners from deep against Dundee so hopefully that's an area we have tightened up in training. Nicky Cadden has been the best left back in the league this season, his delivery from open play and set-pieces has been tremendous. I expect him to play at wing back today, so it's a big challenge for Tavernier and Dujon Sterling to stop those crosses if they can.

If we can accomplish both of those things I think we can hamstring Hibs very effectively. And give ourselves a real platform to push on and get the win. Thankfully we've not had much issue with finding the net in recent weeks, so hopefully that form continues in this match.

Aside from that, hopefully this game isn't too exciting and we win with a normal score line. I'm sick to death of these swashbuckling performances. Safe journey if you're attending the game.