Hitting the canvas on Boxing Day (Well … 1 GERS … 0)

The poor display at Firhill the previous Sunday was rendered meaningless by the fact Rangers eventually won the game. At the end of that particular little Glasgow derby I actually had the feeling we’d shown greater championship potential by having the balls to dig out a win from a very disjointed performance. I actually saw it as a game which, in the long-term, would be regarded as a major step towards our fiftieth Scottish league title because the players had managed to focus on the need to stay four points clear rather than get upset by the lack of cohesion in their play.

However, the only way in which the performance at Firhill could enter properly into a successful over-view of the McLeish renaissance, was by following it up with a good performance and a good win in our next match. At Fir Park we not only performed as poorly as we ever have during Big Eck’s tenure, but we also failed to score for the first time in Goram-knows how long. Moreover, we failed to pick up as much as a single point from the SPL side diametrically oppossed to ourselves this season:

Before this match kicked-off, The Gers were top of the league on 57 points, Motherwell were bottom … on 14. By the end of the match, only Motherwell’s situation had changed.

We had to lose sometime. Unbeaten runs don’t last forever and, no matter who eventually took three points from Rangers, we were gonnae be damned upset about it. That we lost this particular game, however, was all the more galling because we had Ricksen back in the side … because we had Bob Malcolm on from the start instead of young Hutton … because there was no Russell Latapy … because, in short, we had a bl**dy good eleven out on that Lanarkshire pitch. It wasn’t our BEST eleven but we fielded two guys with Champions League winners medals to their name and a whole host of international talent alongside them. Motherwell had James McFadden.

On top of that, we don’t have the league sewn up. Far from it. If the players were going to slack off and drop three unnecessary or embarrassing points then you’d expect it to happen when we were sufficiently far in front of Sellik to let the foot of the gas a bit. You’d expect it to happen perhaps when the championship is officially ours. Even if we lost to Sellik, say, next time we played our nearest challengers, that’d be an understandable, if no less painful loss. But not Motherwell at Fir park, not in December, not when we’re only four points “clear” and just three games from the winter break!!

The crucial difference between the poor performances in our last two games is that Partick Thistle scored early enough to wake us up, Motherwell left it much, much later to finally knock home how badly we were playing. The loss at Fir Park and the win at Firhill were both marked by classy players performing sh*t - but in Glasgow’s West End we had the focus sharpened by conceding an early goal. In Lanarkshire, for some reason, we couldn’t seem to see it coming for the first hour. Motherwell were every bit as determined and energised as Thistle - only a Rangers goal or three would dampen their spirits.

The Gers tried their hearts out against Motherwell. Don’t get me wrong, the effort and commitment was still there. What worries me is the fact we just couldn’t score a goal or, for large parts of the game, look like we’d EVER scored a goal!!

Mikey Mols missed his customary sitter, Ronnie de Boer chose to stop dead instead of walking a Mols pass into the net and Billy Dodds’, in what could be his last appearance in a Gers jersey, forced a brilliant save from the exceptional Well keeper which proved it just wasn’t gonnae be our day. The Frenchman in-between the home side’s sticks - his real name’s Dubourdeau but you just know he’s nicknamed “Scooby” - got down low to his right to palm away a well-angled Doddsie header, late in the game.

However, the shots on goal, or the inaccuracy of them, weren’t our biggest failing. It was the inability to cross a ball. Lovenkrands on the left and Ricksen, who also tried to get himself sent off with a studs-to-the-face effort in McFaden’s direction, on the right typified this malaise. They rarely got past their marker and if they did they rarely sent a good ball into the box. When they did send a ball into the box, it often transpired we needed a cut-back to the edge of the box.

Had we taken just two of our chances then we’d have won. When McFadden walked Motherwell’s goal into the net in 66 minutes (Did Lehman foul Amo when setting up the goal? Who cares!! Amo shouldnae have let him do either!) there was a death-knell feeling not because Rangers had missed clear-cut chances, but because of our inability to create more chances. Barry Ferguson only played like a mortal having a really good game - that’s how off-form we were at Motherwell.

Amoruso’s refusal to come off at the end? - I could write an entire seperate report on that incident but, ultimately, it’ll be forgoten about, as will this result … but only if things change against Killie.