We concede 37.5% of our shots

[Smile 26,606]

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

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

[ForeverAndEver 71,482]

Fuck reading that.

[BridgeIsBlue 66,606]

Interesting read that 

I've been pushing for us to play 3-5-2 for some time now, currently we're playing a system that is so heavily reliant on wingers and fullbacks when we don't have any of real quality. 

Flood the midfield and have John and Candeias on both wings to track back and help, and play Herrera up front with Morelos, a proper partnership instead of having Kenny Miller running around doing the square root of fuck all. 

Alves, McCrorie and Aiden Wilson as the three centre backs. 

[Bad Robot 21,150]

I agree with most and said more or less the same regarding shots and goals on another thread but Hamilton deserved fuck all out that game.

[Gman36 3,455]

If that only includes home shots on target and goals it's a pointless statistic. 

[gj923 1,457]

Interesting read but how the fuck are our managers not picking that up

Also David Templeton a fast technical player?

[Smile 26,606]

Just now, gj923 said:

Interesting read but how the fuck are our managers not picking that up

Also David Templeton a fast technical player?

I laughed a wee bit at that as well.

[Misteral 2,932]

28 minutes ago, Smile said:

they walked out of Ibrox with a deserved three points after a 2-0 win over Rangers.

How do you work that out, Dougie?

[bordersbear 1,105]

Made me laugh too but then imagine windass in his place when he scored. Makes me puke thinking of the sheer panic he would be in and the shot into row z.

[Smile 26,606]

13 minutes ago, Misteral said:

How do you work that out, Dougie?

I think he means their game plan worked ours did not, our problems for me were our strikers couldn't finish their Tea and their Goalie had an excellent game. and our defence is horrid.

[OhW 4,669]

 

[TMB 14,167]

40 minutes ago, BridgeIsBlue said:

Interesting read that 

I've been pushing for us to play 3-5-2 for some time now, currently we're playing a system that is so heavily reliant on wingers and fullbacks when we don't have any of real quality. 

Flood the midfield and have John and Candeias on both wings to track back and help, and play Herrera up front with Morelos, a proper partnership instead of having Kenny Miller running around doing the square root of fuck all. 

Alves, McCrorie and Aiden Wilson as the three centre backs. 

I totally agree.  This squad lends itself to a 3-5-2 more than any other formation.  Not sure about Herrera as a partner for Morelos but we could go after Moult in January.  

[Courtyard Bear 41,357]

Pretty much spot on, we get run over in midfield week after week. Even the games we win we aren’t exactly controlling the middle of the pitch and get caught out of position in defence time after time. 

The fact that Warburton Pedro and now Murty can’t see this is farcical, and if Murty thinks asking Miller to drop deep is the answer then that’s even more laughable. 

[geronimoo 1,474]

We need a better goalkeeper, despite what a few on here think he is an average back-up goalie at best. He is not a good goalkeeper at all.

[weshallnotbemoved! 714]

54 minutes ago, BridgeIsBlue said:

Interesting read that 

I've been pushing for us to play 3-5-2 for some time now, currently we're playing a system that is so heavily reliant on wingers and fullbacks when we don't have any of real quality. 

Flood the midfield and have John and Candeias on both wings to track back and help, and play Herrera up front with Morelos, a proper partnership instead of having Kenny Miller running around doing the square root of fuck all. 

Alves, McCrorie and Aiden Wilson as the three centre backs. 

We have invested in our own analysts in the last year. Pressing record on a video doesn't count. More wasted money.

[Bluenose1986 703]

22 minutes ago, Smile said:

I think he means their game plan worked ours did not, our problems for me were our strikers couldn't finish their Tea and their Goalie had an excellent game. and our defence is horrid.

Every goalie we face these days seems to have the game of their life. It's frustrating. 

[TMB 14,167]

It's also worth mentioning Arsene Wenger's 4-4-2 that was so successful when Arsenal won the league 20 years ago.  They had two strikers that would drift in to wide areas pulling the CBs out of position.  The wide players, who were often more like forwards, would make diagonal runs in to the opposition box and exploit that space.  Teams just weren't ready for it.  

Some might say Miller's running drags defenders out of position but there's no intelligence behind it.  He's just running around like a madman often as far back as his own defence.  The guy creates more confusion in our own team than he does the oppositions.

[ForeverAndEver 71,482]

If we go 3 at the back it should be 3-5-1-1 and play Windass behind the striker.

[Blue Avenger 22,567]

Interesting read, but let's cut through the shite, we're shite.

Bereft of quality from back to front. .

Anyone fancy putting the mortgage on beating Dundee? Thought not.

Wes the best keeper in Scotland and Tav the best defender in Scotland no less and for three seasons now some would have you believe! Improving every week no less. Much like my constipation, but yet my erse remains the size of a gable end. Could go through the rest of the squad. 

Until we as fans stop lauding abject mediocrity and this board by some miracle stop playing at running a professional football club, nothing changes no matter the system played.

[ForeverAndEver 71,482]

3 minutes ago, Blue Avenger said:

Interesting read, but let's cut through the shite, we're shite.

Bereft of quality from back to front. .

Anyone fancy putting the mortgage on beating Dundee? Thought not.

Wes the best keeper in Scotland and Tav the best defender in Scotland no less and for three seasons now some would have you believe! Improving every week no less. Much like my constipation, but yet my erse remains the size of a gable end. Could go through the rest of the squad. 

Until we as fans stop lauding abject mediocrity and this board by some miracle stop playing at running a professional football club, nothing changes no matter the system played.

Foderingham is the best in the country.

[CoopsLaud 4,186]

Fod oot!!!

[Dan Deacon 55,201]

16 minutes ago, Bluenose1986 said:

Every goalie we face these days seems to have the game of their life. It's frustrating. 

Or do our strikers make them look better than they are due to pathetic shooting ability 

[Davy Vandenbroucke 26,158]

2 minutes ago, ForeverAndEver said:

Foderingham is the best in the country.

Shows you how shite the rest of the league is when a League One-standard keeper (Joe Lewis) is considered by some to be the best in the country. 

[ronniescu 2,970]

13 minutes ago, geronimoo said:

We need a better goalkeeper, despite what a few on here think he is an average back-up goalie at best. He is not a good goalkeeper at all.

Fed up saying it m8. Bridgelsblue also said we don't have any fullbacks or wingers of real quality, whereas I don't think we have any fullstop (apart from Candieas sometimes). First goal on Saturday was just an aberration but the second came from our right-back area as per. How much opportunity did Tav have to prevent the build-up to that goal. Fed up also of posters praising him every week. No doubt they're fed up with me slagging him. I know I am.

[BridgeIsBlue 66,606]

15 minutes ago, ForeverAndEver said:

If we go 3 at the back it should be 3-5-1-1 and play Windass behind the striker.

Windass can get so far to fuckery.