Analysis Corner: Rangers go back to the 90s with their tactics
Analysis: Rangers 0-2 Hamilton
By Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)
The bookies gave Hamilton just a 10% chance on Saturday. While Canning’s side rode their luck at times, they walked out of Ibrox with a deserved three points after a 2-0 win over Rangers.
While Accies now look like threatening the top six, their opponents have to deal with a burden growing so heavy it might just topple them.
Rangers currently concede from 37.5% of all shots on target that they face. That’s the worst record in the league, and over double Celtic’s figure.
At Ibrox, that figure gets even worse. In home league games this season, Rangers have faced 14 shots on target, and conceded from 9 of them.
While it may be easy to blame goalkeeper Wes Foderingham, most of these goals have given him no chance. They are instead the result of a team with a poor positional structure.
4-4-2
Rangers play with a 4-4-2. In recent times, this formation has enjoyed a renaissance due to the likes of Leicester City and Atlético Madrid. However, it appears that Rangers have copied the formation of the aforementioned duo without understanding what it is about the tactic that’s made it successful.
Quick tactical history lesson for you: 4-4-2 was popular two decades ago with two central midfielders complemented by two wingers. However, teams soon realised that this could be combatted by playing three in the centre. It’s more important to control the centre of the park than the wings, because it’s closer to all the other players.
This meant that 4-4-2 died pretty quickly.
However, when Leicester and Atletico play 4-4-2, they do so with a midfield that stays pretty close to each other. They essentially play with four central midfielders, while the full backs push up to provide the width.
This means that these teams stay in control of the centre.
Moving back to the Rangers iteration of 4-4-2, it appears that they have just reverted to the 1990s. Josh Windass stays wide and Daniel Candeias stays wide, thus they only play with two in the centre.
Therefore, in 90% of games, Rangers have no control over what’s going on in the centre of the pitch.
If you lose control of the centre, you lose control of the game. You can’t dictate where you want the ball to be, how you want to defend, nor at which pace you want to play. How many games have Rangers really controlled this season?
Hamilton strike again
While much of the discussion will focus on the Rangers side of things, Hamilton now have the two biggest underdog wins in the league this season (their 3-1 win at Easter Road being the other).
Factor in their draw with Aberdeen earlier this month, and it’s clear that Hamilton have a specific game plan for such occasions.
This was just before their second goal:
Notice how they’re not interested in going man to man with Rangers- all Hamilton want in this situation is to clog up the centre of the box. Rangers can cross it in from wherever they like, but with that many red shirts in the way, crossing is just a gamble here.
Incidentally, according to @theSPFLRadar on Twitter, Rangers tried more than 50 crosses throughout this game- that means they were making over one cross per every minute of possession.
However, this is not just a case of fill up the box and hope: there’s also a rapid counter attack strategy at play.
All but one of Hamilton’s seven goals against Rangers, Hibs and Aberdeen have come in the second half. Frustrated at not scoring in the first half, these teams start committing numbers forward, assuming that Hamilton will batten down the hatches.
They also get lazy, and start relying on low percentage crosses into the box (easy for Hamilton to defend).
Hamilton’s second goal on Saturday sums up perfectly how they take advantage from this.
Greg Docherty, David Templeton and Darren Lyon are fast, technical footballers. When teams start throwing lazy crosses into the area, the trio can counter at breakneck speed (even more so when you’ve got a guy like Rakish Bingham holding the ball up so well).
What Hamilton lack in structured build up play, they can make up for through these fast transitions. Hibs, Aberdeen and now Rangers have been on the receiving end of this lesson so far- who will be next
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