RANGERS’ woes on the road continued yesterday with two points dropped in Paisley on a day they ended trailing leaders Celtic by nine points.
The pressure on manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst has intensified further after another lacklustre showing against St Mirren.
Speaking after the 1-1 draw, van Bronckhorst confirmed talks are planned with the Ibrox hierarchy: “We are going to sit down that's for sure and speak about the last couple of months and which way to go forward.
“I have no fear. I never have fear. I will just see what comes.”
It’s now seven points dropped in the last three league matches and it’s hard to see how the Dutchman survives given the abject nature of the performance, the latest in a growing number this season.
If we take a closer look at the stats we yet again see Rangers underperformed in front of goal with a cumulative xG of 2.01 bettering St Mirren’s 0.83. However much of that figure is skewed because of James Tavernier’s penalty.
The Race Chart below may tell us that Rangers would’ve won this match 70 per cent of the time but they created virtually nothing between minutes 24 and 83.
This points towards a growing concern that, despite dominating possession (74 per cent), they simply have no cutting edge in the final third.
A closer inspection of the Shot Map gives us an idea of just how potent Rangers were in front of goal. They had 13 attempts compared to St Mirren’s 10.
Worryingly, they posted an xG of just 0.098 from open play. The limpness of Rangers attack is nothing new and yesterday was just another example of their struggles in trying to cut teams open and create any meaningful chances.
As has happened in four of their last five league games, Rangers conceded first when a Leon King mistake was punished by Jonah Ayunga at the start of the second half following a long throw-in into the penalty area.
It was harsh on Allan McGregor who produced a top save to deny the Buddies frontman only for him to follow up to smash into the back of the net with King dallying on the ball.
Rangers huffed and puffed but eventually drew level on 83 minutes from the penalty spot. Much has been talked and written about VAR in recent weeks but the benefit of it was highlighted yesterday when it corrected the strange decision by Kevin Clancy not only to discard the claims for the penalty but to caution Ryan Kent for diving.
This was rectified after checking the monitor at the side of the pitch and, as we can see below, Tavernier’s spot kick was coolly slotted in the corner despite the best efforts of Trevor Carson to keep it out. The Post Shot xG of 0.88 tells you it was an almost certain goal when it left his boot.
As touched on earlier, Rangers offered next to nothing in an attacking sense between the 24 and 83 and the Passing Networks give us a sense of just how ineffectual the Ibrox side were. In the first half, St Mirren were positioned relatively high which had an impact on van Bronckhorst’s men and just how penetrative they could be.
The second half shows Rangers were more or less camped in the St Mirren half but Alfredo Morelos, trusted to lead the line in place of the injured Antonio Colak, simply offered very little as an attacking outlet. Malik Tillman also had a relatively quiet game as the images highlight.
What is interesting is it was Rangers’ full-backs who provided the greater impetus to create in the match which tells us just how poor they were middle to front.
This is strengthened with the Pressure Heatmap below, which indicates very little in the way of pressing the ball in advanced areas of the pitch. Much of yesterday’s activity occurred around the halfway line on the right-hand flank which, indicates a failure to really test the opposition backline and put St Mirren under any real pressure.
Rangers don’t play another competitive fixture until December 15th when Hibs come to Ibrox which will give ample time for players to recover from injury and improvements to be made on the training ground, of which there are many. Whether van Bronckhorst will be the man in the dugout remains to be seen. This level of performance cannot continue if Rangers wish to be successful.
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