Ross County 0-3 Rangers: The Igamane of the moment

Morning everyone, what a pleasure it is to be talking about another Rangers win by more than 1 goal and even a clean sheet into the bargain. I think this result is always a step in the right direction given our recent form away from home, but we should be extra critical about what we've seen.

I think Clement has always been a "volume" coach, and that's clear in the way he talks about performances, he's pleased with a performance if we get shots off in and around the area. If we take a look at these games shots totals, we managed 19 shots yesterday, all in or in-line with the 18 yard box. Against Kilmarnock we had 28 shots, all within the width of the 18 yard box aside from 1. Seems like really good numbers?

But then let's look at our poor performances and results, Dundee United at home we took 29 shots, similar positions although a few from slightly further out. Aberdeen away? 17 shots, bit more sparse but the approach is the same. I think unfortunately this tells us that the approach isn't really sustainable over a long period of games, right now we are benefitting from the performances and finishing from individuals. But the problem with a "Shoot on sight" approach is that inevitably the shots stop going in as consistently and the results regress as a result.

2 games is a small sample size, but we've seen these sorts of peaks and troughs in our performances across Clements reign. I remember going to the Ross County home game last season where we won 3-1, I felt like it was maybe our best domestic attacking performance since Gerrard was manager. But then it wasn't that long until we were really struggling to get results and score consistently.

Not that I wanted to come in with a real doom and gloom approach, I actually started getting those stats because I thought they'd look a lot better than what we'd seen previously. Instead I actually feel a lot less optimistic than before reading them.

But finally to the game, there was shots for both sides in the opening exchanges before Igamane decided to put us in-front with a powerful strike from the edge of the area from a Jefte lay off. Lots of discussion about how much of a deflection the strike takes, it clearly takes a nick off the defenders foot but given the flight of the ball and the technique used, this seems to just enhance the shots dipping trajectory, rather than assist in beating the keeper.

We were in control from that point onwards, and I think aside from a shot from distance well tipped round the post by Butland, Ross County didn't do much to cause us issues in the game.

We kept the pressure on but without really threatening a second before some slack play by Jack Hamilton in the Staggies goal allowed Danilo to block his clearance and tap home our second. We do love to score goals from keeper errors away at Ross County, real shades of Morelos tackling Scott Fox about the goal.

So we were 2 up at half time away from home, that was a nice change. Could we built on that lead in the second half? Yes and no, yes because we did eventually get a 3rd from a fantastic Tavernier finish, and no because we huffed and puffed a little bit in-front of goal for most of the half.

To give credit where it's due, I thought Clements subs actually gave us a bit of zip and a different dynamic when the game started to drift away. Bajrami is clearly unhappy about being dropped for Hagi and was desperate to make things happen, probably a bit too desperate.

Eventually the full time whistle went and we had conquered Ross County comfortably. I think most of us expected the manager to be positive and maybe even a bit bullish about our chances in our next two fixtures. What actually transpired was him talking about the financial gap between ourselves, Spurs and Celtic. Really inspiring stuff, expectations firmly lowered, thanks Phil.

It really feels like the relationship between Clement and the fans is at a very tenuous stage. Recent performances have lifted the mood but that nonsense post game yesterday makes it obvious that he doesn't really understand what it means to manage Rangers.

So a sweet result followed by a bitter aftertaste. Hopefully we've cleansed our palettes by Thursday ahead of a very difficult European fixture.