Rangers: How Steven Gerrard's side missed chance to turn heat up on Celtic
- Published
Highlights: Livingston 0-0 Rangers
There were times on Sunday at Livingston when you wondered if Borna Barisic and James Tavernier were tempted to throttle the array of centre-forwards and attacking midfielders that Steven Gerrard put on the pitch during the course of 90 fruitless minutes.
The quality of the crossing from both full-backs was exquisite for much of the day. The pace and height and bend on the deliveries was pitch perfect for a hungry player to get on the end of.
Time and again they swept inviting balls into the Livi box and time and again there was no Rangers man there to put pressure on the home defenders.
Rangers' total lack of physical aggression up front in trying to capitalise on what Barisic and Tavernier were delivering was a standout feature. That and their tippy-tappy predictability in the centre of midfield.
Sometimes it's instructive to throw a heap of stats into the mix to illustrate a point on a day like Sunday. Rangers had 23 shots, 29 crosses, 729 passes and 79% possession.
Ryan Jack had 151 touches of the ball, Glen Kamara 115, Connor Goldson 113 and Filip Helander 101. Tavernier and Ryan Kent were in the 90s. Barisic was in the 70s.
Max Stryjek, the Livi goalkeeper, and their defenders Jack McMillan, Jack Fitzwater, Jon Guthrie and Nicky Devlin produced Livi's highest numbers, none of them above 45 or in the Rangers half of the field.
That tells you something about what happened - one way traffic down a dead end street.
No amount of Rangers pressure could unlock Livi's defence, which was remarkable in its focus and discipline given they conceded seven goals in their previous three games. Fitzwater and Guthrie, in particular, were terrific.
Had you known before kick-off that the visitors were going to have 23 attempts on goal then you'd have probably bet the house on one of £7m Kent, £4m Ianis Hagi, £3.5m Kemar Roofe, £2.5m Cedric Itten and whatever million pound valuation we're currently putting on Alfredo Morelos to hit the net.
Kent was busy but nowhere near as effective as he needed to be. Hagi was completely anonymous. Roofe and Itten hardly posed much danger in their 30 or so minutes on the pitch and Morelos wasn't mapped.
The reason Rangers splurged millions on these players is for days like Sunday, when the pitch is a problem, the atmosphere non-existent, the opposition aggressive and the game a nightmare. This is when you need them.
You spend that kind of money so that one of these characters will dig you out of a hole with a moment of class, so that one of them will elevate themselves above the conditions and win the game.
Barisic and Tavernier's work out wide should have reaped some reward. Stryjek made one outstanding save from a Barisic free-kick but wasn't exactly frantic the rest of the time.
The sight of Gerrard's team repeatedly passing their way into the Livi vortex must have been wearingly familiar for Rangers people. They've seen this too often before. To them, it must have seemed like the more money is spent the more things stay the same.
Dropping two points in the fourth game of the season is hardly cause for despair - especially in a place where Celtic lost last October and where they were fortunate not to lose again in March - but it does evoke memories of Rangers' psychological frailties, the mental weakness that did for them from January onwards in 2019-20.
It was a nice opportunity for Rangers to apply some early-season pressure. A win, followed by success at home to Kilmarnock on Saturday, would have seen them 11 points clear of Celtic before their testing trip to Tannadice later in the day.
They had a chance to turn up the heat a little and they didn't take it.
Rangers won't have eased any doubts about their capacity to go the distance. It doesn't mean their bid to stop Celtic's 10 in a row is a busted flush, but it must have come as an unsettling reminder to Gerrard that in the creativity and execution and leadership department he's still got problems despite spending lavishly.
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The pitch, of course, was a factor, but this is a surface Rangers won on twice last season, so there's a limit to that argument. Livi were done 4-1 on this pitch by Hibs the last time they played on it.
They also had the loss of Lyndon Dykes to contend with. The striker is on his way to QPR. You can only imagine how much of a blow that would have been to Livi. Their one semi-dependable goalscorer gone. Where are they going to get their goals from now?
This is a resilient club, though. Before last season they lost their goalkeeper, Liam Kelly, and their centre-halves, Declan Gallagher and Craig Halkett, and they still managed to finish fifth. Halkett was also one of their main providers of goals.
This season they've already lost another defender in Ricki Lamie and their two leading goalscorers from last year, Steven Lawless and Dykes. That's a lot of knocks, a lot of reasons to feel sorry for themselves if they wanted to find excuses.
Instead, they turned up and frustrated the life out of a team put together at vast expense compared to the tuppence ha'penny that Livingston have at their disposal.
Rangers didn't lose a match or a league on Sunday, but a little faith might have ebbed away from some of those who felt certain that Gerrard now had the tools to go to war with Celtic. If he does have them, they need sharpening.
It's too easy, and too early, to say that they haven't learned their lesson from last season, but the reality is that Boli Bolingoli's Spanish misdemeanour presented them with an opportunity to make Celtic's life a little uncomfortable and like all those crosses from Barisic and Tavernier, they weren't good enough to convert.
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