It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that Rangers have been missing a right-winger for seasons.
Spare a year under Giovanni van Bronckhorst, they hadn’t played with conventional wingers before Philippe Clement’s arrival under Steven Gerrard or Michael Beale. Their squad was built for narrow attacks and overloads, not wide players with chalk on their boots creating one-on-ones.
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It is accurate to say they’ve lacked a player in the mould of Vaclav Cerny for a long time, however. An attacker comfortable moving from outside-to-in on the right, a natural fit in wide spaces, left-footed and capable of injecting verticality into attacks. Rangers have carried one of the league’s most dangerous attacking outlets down that flank in James Tavernier for years, but such dependence on their right-back hasn’t allowed for the variation Cerny catalysed during Rangers’ 2-1 win over Motherwell on Saturday.
Only on the pitch for 55 minutes and having still only trained six times with the club since his summer holiday, this was not Cerny at his best. And yet, even this version demonstrated the uplift in Clement’s football when handed quality in wide areas.
Cerny provided a rare sight for the 50,000 Rangers supporters housed in Hampden rather than Ibrox for the club’s first home game of the 2024/25 season, something not really seen since Ryan Kent’s sole goalscoring season for the club in 2020/21 - a winger receiving in the pocket, driving into space and scoring from distance.
His goal arrived not long after the concession of an avoidable own goal by fellow recent arrival Robin Propper. The move started when John Souttar released Tavernier behind his direct marker Ewan Wilson.
Tavernier ‘getting ahead of his man’ was key to the space Cerny would pop up into seconds later. Because the Rangers captain is ahead of Wilson, Motherwell midfielder Andy Halliday is forced to sprint out and confront the right-back. In a knock-on effect, this leaves left-sided defender Dan Casey to take Halliday’s man, Mohamed Diomande, leaving a huge gap in the defence that Cerny has identified.
We can see from the reverse angle that Cerny was already making this move into the half-space to receive on the half-turn even before Casey made a premature jump out of the defence. It was small details in Cerny's game like this one, knowing when to run in his marker’s blindside and moving onto a pass at just the right time, that stood out.
Much like his assist in midweek, the next act looked like one Cerny had completed 100 times. Opening up his body on the half-turn, driving at the defence with two touches and finding the far corner.
In a similar position earlier on in the game, Cerny had created what should’ve been the opener. Receiving in the half-space, turning back around his man and picking the pass of the game that Scott Wright saw cleared off the line from close range.
In Lublin on Tuesday the 26-year-old was visibly low in sharpness. Possession was given away cheaply on several occasions with the legs not yet working at a speed the brain is used to. And yet, tellingly Cerny was still on hand in injury time to whip in a cross on the money for Cyriel Dessers to equalise.
Why? Because even though the winger was not sharp, his environment was familiar. Unlike much of Clement’s time at Ibrox so far, here was a round peg playing in a round hole. Not someone learning the position and its dynamics, like Dujon Sterling, or playing it at a professional level for the first time, like Ross McCausland, who was impressive on Tuesday.
A foul breaks down this move, but notice how the varied movement and sharp run of Cerny creates a gap in the Motherwell defence here. Knowing to attack the space behind his marker when his back has turned after a pass has been played.
Cerny had a tendency to drift inside after starting on the outside. He’s a winger who likes to receive wide but not stay wide - in a bid to hit the box more than the byline. As his FC Twente coach Ron Jans told the Rangers Review: "He’s not someone who only looks to shoot; he can also create for those around him. Vaclav is also capable of moving inside to play in the pockets, allowing the full-back to move around him. But he's at his best moving first from the outside instead of the inside.”
It’s been telling since Clement came to the club that he’s never deviated from using a system incorporating wide players - even when wide profiles haven’t been available to him. The Belgian wants to use ball carriers and inject verticality into his play, but he also needs natural fits in such positions to achieve this. If Beale’s football was about dominating small spaces in numbers, Clement’s centers around dominating big spaces more often in isolation.
To do that you need the right individuals, however. The last time Rangers played at Hampden Clement was using Fabio Silva as a left-winger. The Portuguese left Ibrox with his critics but often played a role that would never see the best in him. Compare Silva’s qualities to Jefte, who impressed from the bench in Poland. Like Cerny, the young Brazilian is a player who thrives in space due to his athleticism and one-on-one ability - he is not someone who instead thrives in combination and small areas like Silva.
Cerny’s profile as a left-footer, able to receive on the inside or outside, offered Clement’s side variations out wide we’ve rarely seen since his arrival.
That was evident in the lead-up to Dessers' opening goal. In the build-up initially, Tavernier is the widest player with Cerny in the pocket. Possession is recycled and moved towards the left and by the time it arrives back on the right, the left-footed Cerny is now glued to the touchline with Tavernier roaming inside.
Because Cerny is left-footed, his pass can cut through the press rather than playing around it, he can’t be trapped to the touchline like a right-footer and the angle of his pass and Tavernier’s run contrasts Motherwell’s desire to squeeze the play in a move towards the touchline.
While this pass only got Rangers into the final third and didn’t create the actual opener, it is these small details that will prove vital to breaking down defences over the course of the season. Like the opening goal, a player receiving in their flow to attack spaces which will only be open for a split second.
In Cerny’s final season at FC Twente, he amassed 13 goals and 11 assists with driving runs over distance, high-energy play and a finesse on the ball to create for teammates. If Rangers can access that version of the Czech winger, their right-wing issues will be solved for a season at least.
"It's what we expected from him. That's why we made a lot of effort to get him here into the building," Clement said post-match in a nonchalant nod to his new attacker's quality. It seems as though the best of Cerny is yet to come.
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