Rangers’ player apathy leads to flat loss in Spain | OneFootball

So Rangers lost 0-1 in a friendly. Against a second division German side who currently sit 7th.

Naturally, we offer a disclaimer of ‘it was only a friendly’ but the fact is the performance, effort, determination, quality, tactics and all-round workrate of this one was farcical and close to zero.

You can talk your mince about ‘not wanting to get injured’ to justify players’ complete apathy, but despite the commentators boring everyone to tears, it’s not unfair to say they were right when they said ‘this is Rangers, you have to win everything’.

This wasn’t preseason, it was a mid-season match designed to keep the players on their toes, and while the result was immaterial, the performance wasn’t.

This was a chance for players to stake a bit of a claim, especially fringe ones who were looking either for a move or a shout at the first team, and we can safely say not a single player aside perhaps John Souttar and at a pinch, Ridvan, actually performed.

The players just weren’t up for it, and yes, the pitch was ghastly, and yes, the wind was howling, but is that an excuse?

Is players not being up for it acceptable?

Is that the new defendable Rangers attitude?

Fabio Silva did sort of try, but he spent most of his time complaining to the referee, who was, admittedly, farcically poor and wanting to make a name for himself. The sending off of Philippe Clement was simply ludicrous in a friendly.

This was not a vintage Rangers performance, and one Ibrox Noise reader suggested this is typical post-winter blues kicking in already.

And yes, we’re all-too-aware that the team is infamous for not coming back after the winter break, which, yes, this looked a bit like.

So when Copenhagen come to Ibrox next week, despite it ‘only being a friendly’, we’d hope for a much, much better showing from our players.

While the result technically doesn’t matter, it does really, because if our players can’t shoot and score in a friendly, what chance do they have in a competitive fixture?

Defence was sort of alright (aside the hapless goal conceded), midfield was quiet, attack was pretty abysmal and offered no threat at all.

If this is the squad and attitude going forward, Philippe Clement will seriously have his hands full.