Rangers’ penultimate match of the Premiership campaign was one filled with emotion as Ibrox said goodbye to several first-team players but on the pitch, it was a match that summed up what has been a largely disappointing campaign.
Michael Beale’s men lost an early goal with Lawrence Shankland capitalising on some defensive fragility to put Hearts ahead. Todd Cantwell equalised with a well-taken finish in first-half stoppage time before Fashion Sakala netted an early second-half goal.
There was a sting in the tail, however, as more defensive instability allowed Garang Kuol to grab an injury-time leveller.
The stalemate means Rangers end the league season with an unbeaten home record but, like many games this term, it was a match they should’ve won.
The stats tell us it was a game dominated by the hosts who were left to rue missed chances while allowing the opposition to score cheap goals.
The game's trendline below tells us Rangers would’ve won last night’s fixture 61 times out of 100 and as we can see, they never gave Hearts a sniff from minute five to the closing period of the game.
As Michael Beale summarised after the match: "Since I’ve been every single game we’ve played we’ve missed opportunities, we need to be more ruthless in both boxes."
Rangers managed to concede twice against Steven Naismith’s men despite the Edinburgh side only mustering three shots on target.
If we look at their opening goal, James Tavernier fails to head the ball clear from danger with Shankland afforded the simplest of tasks in front of goal.
Meanwhile, Kuol’s late equaliser was a result of players failing to clear their lines with Ryan Jack inadvertently knocking the ball into the path of the Australian international to fire past Allan McGregor.
The Post-Shot xG, judging the likelihood of a goal after the shot has been taken, registers at only 0.16. With McGregor having moved off his line, there was plenty of the goal to aim at.
The Rangers equaliser was a well-worked move involving Cantwell and Alfredo Morelos in his final Ibrox outing.
The PSxG registers 0.81 for Cantwell's strike, which tells us just how good a goal this was. The former Norwich City man has four in his last four and consistently, is demonstrating his quality. It was a high-level finish from a relatively standard chance.
READ MORE: The big Rangers talking points from emotional Hearts draw
Sakala’s goal was one Toby Sibbick won’t want to see again. The defender failed to deal with a long ball over the top which allowed the Zambian to burst through on goal before slotting past Zander Clark.
The PSxG of 0.44 highlights this wasn’t a clean strike from Sakala - Naismith will have been disappointed with his team’s defence.
This was a game that felt every inch like an end-of-season affair and the pass network, like what we witnessed at Easter Road, Beale's side were intentionally narrow with the ball.
The team were forced to play much of the game in the middle of the pitch with the likes of Sakala and Morelos struggling to impact the game at points. Lundstram moved into a back three after the break with Cantwell looking to burst through the gaps in midfield.
This was a game Rangers’ should’ve won and Beale admitted his team need to become more ruthless in both penalty boxes if they’re to be successful next season. “Overall it’s a season of disappointment and next year we need to come back and be stronger at both ends,” he said in his post-match press conference.
“I don’t think there’s too much wrong between the boxes, we dominate a lot of the games if you see the games with top 5 teams we don’t have too many problems with the opponents we’re playing against, we just have to be more ruthless at both ends.”
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