Ultimately Giovanni van Bronckhorst was dismissed from his role as Rangers manager because of the future as well as the past.
Trailing Celtic by nine points after 15 league games having scored 16 fewer goals, there was not enough evidence in the trends or numbers to suggest he could turn this situation around. Not enough development had been witnessed to justify claims of trusting the process.
Looking in detail at a number of metrics, the dismissal seems justified. All numbers are taken exclusively from the Scottish Premiership.
Chance creation issues
Starting with the basic xG metrics, the Dutchman could not point to a mass underperformance of goals based on the chances his side were creating.
In one of his final press conferences, he said: “The expected goals you see in our last games is really high. In the end, the actual goals we scored are low.”
If you need a reminder, xG (expected goals) is a metric designed to measure the probability of a shot resulting in a goal. An xG model uses historical information from thousands of shots with similar characteristics to estimate the likelihood of a goal on a scale between 0 and 1, according to StatsBomb.
Problematically for van Bronckhorst, this argument did not hold up over the course of the season. In fact, Rangers have marginally overperformed their xG to this point in the league. Scoring 31 goals from 28.16xG in open play, as well as four penalties.
Per 90, they’ve averaged 1.86xG to Celtic’s 2.48. That’s not an insurmountable gap and their Old Firm rivals have overperformed by scoring 50 goals from 38xG. Even still, they've created chances worth 10 goals more after the same number of matches.
The Ibrox side may well have averaged the most shots in the division, 19.6 per 90, but too often it has been a case of quantity over quality. The recent 2-1 defeat against St Johnstone perfectly captured this, when 29 shots were attempted but Rangers’ quality of chance was the second-lowest in the division that weekend.
Their average shot distance is the league’s seventh-highest at time of writing, an important detail because the closer you are to goal the more likely you are to score.
Furthermore, both Hearts and Aberdeen have a higher xG/Shot per 90 (0.11 to 0.09), the average likelihood of a chance turning into a goal, than Rangers. Despite having plenty of shots, quality was often lacking.
Struggles on the road
At home, Rangers’ xG average of 2.41 was marginally smaller than Celtic’s 2.43. Their issues arose on the road. Ange Postecoglou’s side have averaged 2.52xG away from home, almost double Rangers’ 1.23.
As the Rangers Review wrote before the fatal trip to McDiarmid Park and following the nervy, narrow win in Lanarkshire, a number of possession metrics alongside the chance creation figures suggested dropped points were imminent away from home.
There was an overreliance on long balls when territory wasn’t handed to van Bronckhorst’s men who, as outlined in greater detail here, saw final-third activity drop in away fixtures. Subsequently, chance creation activity dropped too.
Antonio Colak overreliance
The dropped points against Livingston, St Johnstone and St Mirren coincided with Antonio Colak’s drop in form. The Croatian significantly overperformed his chance creation numbers initially, scoring 10 goals from 4.39xG. In his next five, he scored just one goal from 2.43xG.
Without Colak's goals, van Bronckhorst’s team were not able to fall on the right side of thin margins.
A 2-1 home win against Dundee United, in which Colak scored a double, offers a perfect example of the type of game Rangers won earlier in the season that would prove a stumbling block later on.
On that day, Colak scored two 0.13xG chances. Neither opportunity was particularly high-value but clinical finishes changed the course of the game.
In comparison, during a 1-1 draw with Livingston, the 29-year-old failed to score from one 0.13xG and one 0.15xG chance.
What does this show? There were signs earlier in the season that Rangers were not creating sufficient chances to win games consistently. When their one overperformer slowed down, that came to fruition.
Set piece and goalkeeping problems
Set pieces posed a problem too. As the Rangers Review discussed in detail over the weekend goals from corners has been cut in half this season compared to last. Having scored 0.39 corner goals per 90 in 2021/22 they’ve only managed 0.2 this season. That’s despite having more corners which again proves quality supersedes quantity.
And although they haven’t shipped goals defensively, the goalkeeping problem from last season was not fixed in the summer. To determine the quality of shot stopping we can use Goals Saved Above Average (GSAA), defined by StatsBomb as: “How many goals did the keeper save/concede versus expectation (post-shot xG faced)? This is representative of how many goals the goalkeeper's saves prevented within a season.”
Allan McGregor’s current GSAA total stands at -1.94 in the league and Jon McLaughlin’s -2.98. Both of these factors have significantly contributed to the Ibrox side conceding 14 goals from 9.07xG.
A failure of philosophy
Overall, the style of play that van Bronckhorst implemented did not threaten opposition defences enough. His philosophy is flexible but guided by some non-negotiables. He wants to play with width, man-mark where possible and build attacks directly.
Take this pass network from his final game against St Mirren, which charts the average position a player made their passes from.
Too often the No.8's high positioning, Glen Kamara and Malik Tillman in this example, combined with wide wingers and deep full-backs lead to circular possession opponents were comfortable facing.
As my colleague Jonny McFarlane summarised, this was a failure of philosophy. How can a manager do what van Bronckhorst did in Europe and not build a team capable of dismantling domestic defences?
The numbers show what the eyes have witnessed in recent months, his football did not generate chance creation at the rate required. Alongside other factors, that caused the dreadful pre-World Cup run that ultimately cost van Bronckhorst his job.
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