Rangers FC won the first leg of the third round qualifiers of the Europa League 3-1 vs Maribor and finally, we got to see the free-flowing football that everyone was expecting from a Steven Gerrard side.
The Gers took the lead through Alfredo Morelos in the 6th minute of the match but Maribor equalised right before half-time. And just when it looked as if the match was going to be another hard fought battle for the Light Blues, goals from James Tavernier and Lassana Coulibaly ensured that Gerrard had little to worry about.
But while everyone was happy with the performance that the Gers displayed on the pitch, Gerrard revealed one big problem that his team had during the game and how he had to solve it then and there.
Talking after the game, the Rangers boss said: “It was a great game with two really good teams going at it. I thought we started the game really, really well and got in front which we were really pleased about.
“But, there was something about our shape and something about our distances tonight that didn’t really feel right from probably 15, 20 minutes to halftime.
“As a staff, we put that right, and as a team, we asked them to go and carry that out with a better shape, more togetherness and going and pressing the ball as a team rather than individuals doing their own thing within it.
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— Rangers Football Club (@RangersFC) August 9, 2018
“Our pressing in the second half was very, very good and exactly how we want it to look. From the side, I felt like we pressed as a team, we pressed in units and we pressed together, and we were rewarded as they gave us the ball back because of our organisation.
“In the first half, I felt we tried really hard and we got it right at times, but on other times, individuals were jumping out of the shape to go and press alone and we were getting cut up a little bit by a good team.”
Gerrard’s concern is pretty justified given the fact that the Gers are set to take on Celtic in the season’s first Old Firm Derby in a couple of weeks time.
But many people think that this sort of ‘out-of-shape’ dilemma is happening only because the first team has a number of new players and all of them are working under a new manager.
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