This game will be analysed in two parts as the first and second halves were so drastically different to one another. There is a lot of talk about this game having been a test of character. Spending almost an hour a man down meant that we were always short whenever they came forward. As loathe as I am to admit it, Lennon used his resources conservatively and perfectly. I also believe we played very good football. This result has not dampened my enthusiasm for the oncoming season. Far from it. The only cause for concern was silly goals to concede – though I think we will stabilise at the back with time.
This does a pretty good job of summing up how I (and most Rangers fans) felt about this game.
Before we get into it, please do take a look at The Rangers Report and RSC PDX. We have an incredible community of Rangers fans doing some incredible stuff with stats and numbers.
I am not going to get too much into the John Beaton bashing brigade. There is footage where, from his angle, it looks like Jack headbutted Stokes. Should Stokes have been sent off? One hundred percent, in my opinion, for either the Tavernier or the Jack incidents. However, it wasn’t to be. What we must do is keep up the pressure on the refs, play the same nationwide mind games that Celtic do so that they are afraid to make dodgy calls against us. I believe Beaton was nervous after what happened in the media after the Motherwell game with regards to Hodson’s alleged handball in the box. We must in turn apply that pressure onto the refs going forward. I know he has a dodgy history with us – I do not think there is a conspiracy, I just think he’s incompetent.
Speaking of which, the starting 11 was perfect except for Hodson. I would prefer to play Miller fewer minutes as he contributes very little – except, infuriatingly, when he’s assisting or scoring a goal. I think we should keep him as an impact sub. One mistake Pedro made in this game was keeping Kenny on in the second half. I can understand the desire for a leader on the pitch, but he was lost at sea for most of the half, chasing shadows. Wilson as a sub was a curious decision for me but he managed an assist, so what complaint can really be made?
A Tale of Two Halves
The biggest reason I have split the analysis in two is because we completely reinvented ourselves at half time. I will applaud Pedro’s gumption for the calls he made, but I think he got it completely wrong. In the first period we managed 147 passes to 119 in the second. That can be put down to the fact that we were a man down the entire second half – this can impact your ability to retain the ball. What is far less inexcusable was our passing accuracy. It dropped from just over 90% to just over 80%. This was primarily because our strategy became more or less “lump the ball forward and win the knockdowns”. However, I believe our formation was poor for this tactic.
We were scintillating for much of the first half. An error allowed Hibs in to equalise but Jack was perfect with his passing again (if only for a smaller sample this time). In fact, so were Candeias, Miller and Cardoso. Contrast that to the second half where the only player who reached 100% was Morelos – and he only made 2 passes in 20 minutes. Losing the ball consistently like this puts our back line under unnecessary duress. Luckily, Hibs barely made us suffer for this approach as their only goal in the second half was more of a result of poor marking (and a pretty decent strike) as opposed to losing possession.
We lost possession playing a long ball 8 times in the first half. In the second? 19 times. The strategy was not working. We were not finding Herrera regularly enough.
Possession Network Map
First 45:
In the first half we played the way we should always going forward. Foderingham was barely part of the play, as he should be. A good shot stopper, his distribution is very poor. Rather than force him to take part in the build-up, rather just cut him out entirely. We were compact and showed good movement. We pressed Hibs. Surprisingly, Jack was far further forward than Dorrans this match – he even managed two crosses. I believe this will be a sort of pumping piston that we see going forward in future to break up any type of predictability in our play. Cardoso also had a much larger input in the game this time, contributing significantly to build-up play. Again, our main release was down the flanks. This time, however, it was primarily down the right (Tavernier) as opposed to Hodson. This too is switched from the Motherwell game. We have a fluid system that, as our chemistry develops, should prove dangerous and aggressive. Also interesting was the positioning of our wingers – both Candeias and Windass stuck out very wide this match, allowing space for Hodson and Tavernier to underlap as opposed to overlapping against Motherwell. This was how Hodson got his shot away in the game, and it is another example of how Pedro is able to change the system we play from game to game to make it difficult for opponents to pin us down. I am incredibly impressed with Morelos, he is strong as an ox, scored a header and is clearly very able with his feet. I do not want to get carried away but I watch on his development with great anticipation.
Second 45: 
This is the best opportunity to illustrate how much a Possession Network Map can show us. The difference between the two halves was night and day. Hodson came off and Windass and Tavernier played like two wingbacks. Alves was a ‘quarterback’, as Caixinha describes the role, launching balls to our forwards. Unfortunately it was not successful. The balls that did reach Herrera and were knocked-down were then intercepted before Morelos or Miller could make any progress in the attack. Miller went from 15 passes in the first half to 6 in the second. Morelos made 2 in 20 minutes. He and Kenny were lost at sea – it was not a formation that suited them. Also note the sheer drop in connections made between the players. We have good ball players. I think we should always try out-play our opponents. We had to sit deeper as well, as a result of losing the ball so often to long range hopefuls. It spread us thinner across the park.
I will praise Caixhinha for the balls required to make such a drastic call. If it worked we would all be praising his genius now. I just think the call he made was slightly off. What he did was overload the strikeforce and defence, leaving us scant in the middle with decent cover on the flanks. I don’t think Hibs were any threat down the wings (unlike Motherwell) and as such we should have gone narrower and packed the midfield:
In this formation, instead of having only Morelos and Miller lost in the sea of Hibs defenders, bringing in Windass and Tavernier as midfielders as opposed to wingbacks would give us an extra body in midfield and allow us to put more pressure on the knock-downs that Herrera was winning, while Cardoso and Wilson could cover the flanks – which Wilson was basically already doing as Windass offers no defensive cover whatsoever. I admit readily that hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy for me to sit here and say “I would do this,” but for any aspiring coaches, this is how I would deal with being a man down against a narrow opposition. Pack the middle and move like a pack of wolves vertically, not horizontally.
Shot Map:
My biggest complaint last week was that Windass kept making the same poor decisions in attacking areas and shooting from range, thereby wasting possession. By playing both him and Candeias further wide meant that he was better positioned to cross rather than shoot which he did, the best opportunity from which came from Miller hitting the post in the 21st minute. The only downside to that is by being that far wide, Candeias was very isolated. Other than his assist, he contributed very little.
Our shooting is good. Windass’ long range blocked shot was out of frustration and isn’t reflective of good opportunity crafting. The biggest issue now is the fine, fine margins by which we’re consistently not scoring. We hit the woodwork against Progres twice, against Motherwell twice and now against Hibs once. That is sharpness and needs to be refined. Especially for Kenny: while he has been integral in our build-up play, he has now missed sitters in consecutive matches. This leads into one of the biggest problems we faced last season and seemingly still face: profligacy. We are not scoring enough goals for our amount of shots. I think this is only rustiness though, considering the number of times we have hit the woodwork.
Expected Goal Chain (xGC)
As I mentioned last week I will maintain a very primitive xGC counter here. Basically its function is to measure the true attacking contribution of players that Assist and Goal stats can miss – for example, the pass that leads to the assist can be more difficult/important than the assist itself.
So here you can see all the passes leading up to every shot on goal we had, resulting in:
What this tells us is that King Kenny is still the King. He was the biggest producer going forwards, meaning he contributed the most to attacking moves that were successful (ie: resulted in shots or even goals). Again, a tale of two halves showed Windass and Candeias dominating the flanks in the first 45 vs Wilson and Tavernier in the second 45. I am relatively suspicious that Caixinha has a long term plan to play similarly to Juventus with 3 at the back and this was his first active test of that. I don’t know if we are suited to that style – we certainly weren’t on Saturday. Hodson again contributed very little going forwards. He doesn’t bring the same level of attacking ability as Wallace and Tavernier do – however, I believe he works as hard as any player on the pitch and can’t be faulted for that. Just maybe not Rangers class. What highlights how our strikers suffered in the second half were how Herrera and Morelos had two of the lowest xGC scores – when, as our strikers, they should have the highest. I think Pedro will have learned from this though. It does make me fear for the future a little bit – how does Herrera fit in this team? He wins long balls well but our team (especially not Kenny) is just not suited to hunting down knock-ons.
A Quick Tribute to Hodson
I feel like I beat down on him a lot. So here’s a quick two second depiction of how hard he is willing to work for this team. Look at that speed demon go:
This is a counter attack after a corner. You can see him on the outside of Murray, a very pacey striker, sprinting for his life.
Hodson sprints the absolute length of the pitch to cover Tavernier, with Alves and Cardoso caught out of place in the opposition box for the corner. To be able to outsprint their entire strike-force for that long deserves credit. He may not be Rangers quality, but God loves a trier.
Conceded Goals:
Oh boy. Where to begin. The easiest is probably the third goal we conceded to Slivka:
That entire region of red should have had at least one Rangers player in it. Kenny should have covered it but Slivka left him cold (Kenny being lost at sea) – after which Cardoso should have stepped forward to close the gap. Alas… (Note Dorrans)
Of all the players to close him down, Dorrans turns and charges towards him (spot the ball). All Slivka has to do is lob the ball over Dorrans and their striker is through clean on goal. We’re at a shambles here, and it’s only a throw in.
Somehow Cardoso has still not closed down Slivka, another Hibs attacker is making a run through the centre of our defence which Slivka could easily lob into the path of – fortunately for us, he shoots! Unfortunately for us, Foderingham is uncharacteristically slow, and is beaten from a vaguely impressive half-volley. A goal we should just not concede. It’s basic marking principles. Kenny and Morelos are the cherries on top, both just jogging away, not particularly hurriedly, from two open Hibs players.
The second goal: This goal was also shambolic, but we had just been rattled by Jack’s red card and the players were shellshocked, so I’ll mostly give it a pass except for one moment: 
Alves tries to intercept the ball and misses it, Hodson is loose on Murray and is turned inside out. Murray gets the pass into Slivka whose shot is turned into our net by Tavernier. Alves should be more calm and know not to be drawn out like that. Hodson should be tighter on his man. We were a bit out of sorts though as the red card had only just happened prior.
The First goal: Cardoso should have just clattered him. The patience that saved us against Motherwell last weekend turned into slowness that got us beat. This will sometimes happen.
Cardoso has already been turned inside out, the desperate slide tackle coming in full force. At this point Murray can lay it off to two Hibs players and they will likely score. He goes it alone instead and Foderingham is very slow to get down. I do love Fodders but this game was not his finest. This was saveable.
We conceded another stupid goal to Motherwell from a freekick. We still aren’t as sharp on those as we should be:
There’s two 2-on-1 overloads in the box, as well as lax marking outside making us vulnerable. Pedro needs to tighten that noose in the box. We can’t keep risking these loose long balls in.
Unfortunately it looks like we could take some advice from the Hibs training sessions:
Not a single overload, runners are tracked. Defensive set-piece Nirvana is attainable.
Team Mentality:
Something that was a bit underrated in the post game analysis was the pack mentality Lennon had instilled in his team. I believe this image summed it up best:
They outnumber our players on the left, the ref is being distracted and Murray is screening any other Rangers players from joining the fray. I definitely think this was part of Lennon’s game plan – and it worked. The ref made the call and sent off Jack and Stokes stayed on. They won. Hopefully, going forward, Caixinha now knows to anticipate this and has extinguished any naivety about our game. People will play ugly to win, shamelessly.
In conclusion:
If you made it this far, congratulations! I’ll be frank – this was just a bastard of a game. We shouldn’t have lost it but Lennon played us perfectly. We will bounce back though, and I am very much looking forward to our next few games. Sadly I will be missing the Hearts game but I know the team will be itching to make a comeback. Morelos was scintillating and got a goal. If we can get Jack’s red overturned, he will prove to be crucial. He has yet to misplay a pass in the league. I genuinely think with a little more bulk and presence, he could be a future Rangers captain. Dorrans continues to be sublime, a little more subdued this week in a deeper position but still tidy. Kenny continued being Kenny. Herrera still has question marks. Windass was again formidable, beating players more regularly than a certain Barrie did. Candeias got an assist, Pena was… Interesting and still an unknown quantity. Alves and Cardoso, one or two errors apart, were imposing. Wilson was surprisingly handy, but lost the ball so many times as to possibly cancel out the positive. I still like what Tavernier brings. This is a good squad. I can feel it. We just need to hit our stride. I look forward to each coming game more and more.
Until next time Troops,
Yours faithfully,
Foreign Rangers Fan.
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Foreign Rangers Fan 