Analysis Corner: Motherwell vs Rangers

By Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)

Sunday saw arguably the game of the season as Motherwell and Rangers traded six goals between them in a breathless encounter at Fir Park. While Rangers fell behind twice, they rallied into a half time lead which they held on to up until pretty much the last kick of the game.

Here are the key talking points from Sunday’s game:

Sloppy Rangers

Connor Goldson had his poorest game for Rangers since arriving from Brighton in the summer.

Committing an error so early in the game is tough to recover from, so when his slip allowed Danny Johnson to slot past McGregor unopposed, you could see the mistake affecting Goldson’s game.

One of his strongest attributes for the Ibrox side is his distribution from the back. The Englishman seems very composed in possession and has an admirable range of passing. Yet on Sunday, he played no fewer than sixteen sloppy passes that were picked up by the home side.

In the first half, this was easily compensated by excellent forward forays from Borna Barisic and James Tavernier.

However, in the second, the pair were much more reluctant to pile forwards.

Indeed, just two shots on goal in the second 45 minutes would suggest that Rangers priorities had shifted almost exclusively towards protecting their lead.

In that second half, the Steelmen shipped the ball into the Rangers box 30 times – nearly once per minute. Furthermore, the Rangers midfield enjoyed around half of the amount of possession as they had managed in the first half.

This resulted in a change in formation, with Rangers reverting to a 4-4-2 for the last ten minutes.

This had the opposite of the desired effect, with Rangers’ front two of Morelos and Lafferty totally isolated, while Motherwell’s midfield drove forward unchallenged.

Between them, the Rangers midfield completed just two passes in this fraught period where the guests dropped so deep that they lost any control on the game.

This encouraged Motherwell to pile more and more bodies further forward – for the equalising goal, no fewer than eight Motherwell bodies were in the box.

Rangers’ injury time woes

As much as there has been talk about Rangers’ defensive improvement under Steven Gerrard, the fact remains that in two of their three domestic games they’ve dropped points whilst deep into injury time.

Even looking at their European campaign, otherwise comfortable nights were made nervy after conceding a late goal against Osijek and a late penalty to Maribor.

It’s not yet at the stage where it can be diagnosed as a serious problem, but should they continue to lose their grip on games around the 90th minute, then their opponents will be massively encouraged to become a bit more aggressive in their attacking at that point in the game.

Just the tonic for Motherwell

Last season was one which promised so much for Motherwell, but ultimately didn’t deliver. Two cup finals and narrowly missing out on the top six make it a season of what might have been for the Steelmen.

Nevertheless, their fans must have been fearing for the worst after being comprehensively dismantled by Hibs on the opening day, followed by a 1-0 derby defeat at home to Hamilton.

Sunday was exactly what was needed.

In a game reminiscent of the 4-3 defeat to Celtic in late 2016, the early lead seemed to lift both the team and the fans as the home side pressed their opponents, stopping them from playing out from the back as much as possible.

The major difference between this game and the Celtic defeat was that ultimately Motherwell were rewarded for their efforts. September brings two games against league leaders Hearts, as well as away visits to Aberdeen and Kilmarnock – this point should give them a lot of confidence going into this tough run of fixtures.

For more analysis like this, follow Dougie on Twitter (@dougie_wright)

• Analysis Corner