There’s a lot of noise about football style just now, but truth is it counts for very little if the results don’t follow. Rangers have been here before. We can kid ourselves about pretty patterns, or we can remember what actually wins trophies.
Style v Substance: Rangers Know The Answer
When folk go on about having a certain way of playing, you have to ask: would anyone honestly want a Russell Martin type back at Rangers just to see a few more passes across the back? We’ve seen that movie in Scotland already. Brendan Rodgers eventually got found out at Celtic, then Martin himself dropped the idealism and focused more on results. Now Celtic look like they’ve gone for their own Martin version again in Wilfried Nancy, all talk of style and philosophy, but it still has to deliver when it matters.
Our own history tells you what counts. Walter Smith and Alex McLeish didn’t serve up great football every week. Sometimes it was pragmatic, sometimes it was downright ugly. But they played for results, for trophies, for winning the big moments. Nobody looks back on those leagues and cups and complains about too many diagonals or a direct ball into the box.
Rohl’s Turnaround And The European Frustration
Danny Rohl has already turned us around in the league. That much is obvious. Europe is done and it’s been disappointing, but a lot of the damage in that competition was done before he arrived. You can’t pin everything on the new man. What gets a bit tiring is seeing supporters say Europe doesn’t matter when the draw comes out, then lose the plot when we’re beaten by a decent side.
Right now it’s individual mistakes that are killing us. The second half last night summed it up: it looked like some of the players, Gassama, Raskin and a few of the subs in particular, just weren’t tuned in defensively the way Ferencvaros were. Their players did the ugly stuff, we switched off, and you get punished at that level.
The League Is Still There If We Don’t Panic
Despite the disaster of a start, the league is still absolutely possible. Celtic aren’t anything special, whatever the noise. Hearts are being talked up but they’re not as strong as some are making out, and we’ve already seen Derek McInnes fall back into his usual plan: sit in a low block, punt it long and hope for scraps, just like he did at Kilmarnock and Aberdeen. On that basis, you could almost joke Motherwell have more chance of winning the SPFL than some of the sides being hyped.
The reality is if we keep improving under Rohl and cut out the daft errors, there’s enough weakness in the league for us to take advantage. But that only happens if the support stays focused on the long game rather than having a meltdown over every setback.
Transfer Windows And Fixing Past Damage
Rohl hasn’t had a single transfer window yet, which is a massive point that seems to get ignored. In my view we’ve always needed three or four proper windows to build not just a strong XI, but a bench that doesn’t drop the level every time we make a change. We’ve been short in that area for years.
Philippe Clement, Gio van Bronckhorst and even Michael Beale basically got one main window with real business done, then the pressure was piled on them to win the league straight away while key players walked out the door. Steven Gerrard, by comparison, had multiple windows to shape his squad. That difference matters.
The mess left by Kevin Thelwell and Martin isn’t getting fixed in a single summer. Realistically you’re looking at least three proper transfer windows unless every signing hits the ground running at full speed, which almost never happens in football. So we either accept that and back Rohl through the rebuild, or we keep tearing it up every 18 months and wondering why we’re always short.
Results over style, patience over knee-jerk. That’s the only way this works.
Related Articles
About Rangers News Views
Rangers News Views offers daily Glasgow Rangers coverage including match reaction, transfer analysis, SPFL context, tactical breakdowns and opinion-led articles written by supporters for supporters.
