Analysis Corner: Rangers not improving infront of Goal

by Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)

Last season, Rangers took a lot of shots. Unfortunately for the Ibrox club, they didn’t turn into a lot of goals.

Indeed, at 536 shots, they tried to test the keeper 47 more times than Aberdeen last season. Yet, as the Dons were creating a better quality of chance, they ended up scoring 18 more goals than their Glasgow rivals.

Only Hamilton were worse at turning shots into goals than Rangers last season.

Although it is still early days, this trend does not appear to have righted itself. Rangers are currently sitting with 4 goals from 37 shots- around the same shots per goal level that saw them struggle so much last year.

So what’s happening?

A striker can only feed off what their team-mates provide them. Take Michael O’Halloran for example. He struggled to make an impact at Rangers primarily because the team is fairly slow in the build up. Upon winning the ball back, you will often see Rangers get the ball wide and take it from there.

At St Johnstone, Tommy Wright’s side are excellent at picking their moments to go direct. This means he gets the best out of a player as fast and direct as Michael O’Halloran.

A useful model for judging strikers is as follows: every 90 minutes you want to see four shots. At least two should be on target, and hopefully one of those should be a goal. Let’s call this the “4-2-1” model.

Therefore, between Rangers’ two strikers, you would expect them to average around eight shots a game, with four on target between them. In their three games so far, Rangers strikers have managed the following:

Kenny Miller has five shots, with just one on target.

Alfredo Morelos has two shots with one on target.

Eduardo Herrera has had two shots with none on target.

Put simply, Rangers’ strikeforce are averaging three shots a game with less than one on target. Rangers are not getting the ball to their strikers in adequate areas for them to make a difference. If Rangers want to consider pushing even Aberdeen this season, this must change quickly.

So what’s the solution?

Look at Rangers’ shot map for the season so far:

Just five shots on target over three games is pretty woeful. The sea of yellow and red (everything blocked or off target) shows that Rangers are not find the time or the space in these dangerous areas to create high quality chances.

I would suggest the answer is more about what Rangers are doing off the ball than what they do on it.

None of these opportunities came after winning the ball back in the opposition half in dangerous areas. This means that for almost all of these opportunities, Rangers have had to face a crowded penalty box. Therefore a) you don’t have time to pick your target, and b) the shot is more likely to be blocked due to more players being in the way.

Solving this requires Rangers to do one of two things.

First of all, they could press the opposition more aggressively when possession is conceded. This would mean they could win the ball back higher up the park when the opposition is not defensively organised.

The second approach is to become much more fluid with their build up play. Is the ball going wide enough? Is it moving quickly enough? If you watch a team like Barcelona or Real Madrid in full flow, they treat the opposition defence like pizza dough. They pull it out, they push it in, they stretch it wide…they’re constantly moving, waiting for a moment of weakness.

Ultimately, the jury is still out on Rangers’ front men. The midfield is quite simply not managing to get them the ball in areas of the pitch where they could be dangerous. Until Rangers fix this, expect to see the Ibrox side continue to struggle to find the net

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• Analysis Corner