Rangers vs Spurs: The little Raskins

Hello all, apologies for this coming out in the afternoon but it's been a very busy day. Rangers managed to get a result last night against a Spurs side in poor form, but still of a vastly superior quality of player. It wasn't a surprise given our results in Europe, but I think the performance was a real welcome sign of progress.

Before the game most of us were shocked to see Barron on the bench with Bajrami at 10 and Ridvan out wide. Although on paper it seemed a bit odd, it felt like a very balanced line-up once the game started.

I thought as much as it was a strong half overall, we actually looked very vulnerable when forced to concede a very early corner following some incisive play through our press.

As I'd suggested in my match preview, it looked like we were targeting the space left by the full backs inverting, Ridvan had alot of joy early on, as did Igamane peeling out wide. All of the forwards were switched on for the ball going in behind Spurs, Dragusin especially really did not want to have to engage out-wide and get back.

I really liked what we saw from Bajrami too, he had a great effort saved by Forster. But in general he was sharp and really keen to get things moving when we had the ball. Although I think the fact he has been on the wing has restricted him a little, he clearly has positional freedom and maybe doesn't use it enough. But last night he had a great time sniffing out the space between the lines and receiving the ball.

Jefte was maybe lucky to escape a booking for pulling Brennan Johnson back early on. But overall he and Ridvan looked like a very solid left hand partnership, happy to interchange positions a little, but I think having two people who can really protect the ball on the left made us look extremely reliable in possession.

I think opposition number 10s have generally found it easy to find space against us, but Raskin and Diomande made life really difficult for Maddison. The amount of times in the first half especially when he would need to pick up the ball between the deepest midfielders was a sign that our midfield structure was much harder to play through than we've recently seen.

I liked our positional discipline all over the park. Cerny really held the width well and was patient when we had the ball, it made Spurs back off and gave them a decision to make about who was going to go out wide to meet him.

Unfortunately the biggest disaster in the game was losing John Souttar in the first half to a muscle injury. It's his first injury for a long time, and I really hope it's not serious, we aren't exactly blessed with options at the moment.

Understandably that disrupted our momentum and Spurs got a bit of a foothold. Butland had miscued a few clearances and I think we lost a little bit of confidence in our ability to play out too. Those spells happen against better teams and we dealt with it quite well overall. And we ended the half on top with a good effort from Cerny that Forster had to deal with.

The second half began, and what a way for it to start. We played a free kick quickly, Diomande drew two towards him and then sent Tavernier down the right. He clipped a ball in behind, it fell perfectly for an onrushing Igamane who found the bottom corner with an excellent finish. Ibrox erupted and it really felt like we'd got our just rewards for the way we'd been playing.

We looked like we might add to the lead as we continued with our aggressive approach. Spurs eventually made a triple sub that seemed to improve things a bit from their perspective. I really enjoyed Maddison getting increasingly annoyed as he struggled to influence the game, culminating in a free kick that he curled well over and then hoped for a phantom deflection.

Rangers responded with some subs of their own. Bajrami and Cerny subbed for Barron and Sterling. For me this verged on over cautious, taking off one of them was probably fair, neither were getting back to the same extent. But both players still carried a lot of threat in the final third and I think it encouraged Spurs onto us.

I had read some good analysis on playing against Spurs the other night, teams are really keen to go man to man with the press in wide areas as Spurs struggle to get the ball back into central areas. In the second half we really saw that, the full backs had a lot of joy in forcing the opposition players to the byline and stopping them going anywhere.

Kulusevski had been introduced for Werner at half time and had struggled to really affect the game from the right. He did make one telling contribution, unfortunately for us. Spurs found some space on right with Solanke getting in behind, he cut it back, it opened up for the Swede who wrong footed Butland with a great finish. Glenn Hoddle on commentary seemed to be really defensive about the quality of the goal, despite no one criticising it.

Dessers came on shortly after the equaliser for Igamane, who really impressed and must be fired up ready to start at the weekend. Robbie Fraser also came on, which felt like a real show of faith in the youngster from Philippe Clement.

I must admit that at this point it looked like we might have to hold on for the last 10 or so minutes. We hadn't threatened since Cerny and Bajrami had departed. Instead we started to get a grip of the game again. Raskin had covered every blade of grass, but somehow seemed to find even more in the tank, he drove us forward as he had done all night.

There was one big chance to talk about before the end of the game. Dessers took the ball, danced through the Spurs backline and forced a fantastic save from Forster. You had to feel like that was our moment to win the game. It felt a bit cruel to watch him score shortly after but unfortunately he was a mile offside.

To see us finish the game on top felt like a real positive. Make no mistake, if we can play like this on Sunday we are in with a real chance of retaining the league cup. It ended all square and Spurs will count themselves lucky that they left with a singular point rather than zero.

It gives the manager something to think about with the line-up, in the 442 shape we've looked far more competitive in recent weeks, but it feels like going all out could be a risk against a Celtic side with plenty of pace to hurt us.

I've got more thoughts on that but I've already written a lot so I'll save it for my match preview on Sunday.

Back to yesterdays result though, this was a real competitive team performance in every area, some individuals like Raskin deserve special praise. But to a man this team worked for every inch out there. It's something to be proud of and maybe a sign that there's life in this team yet.