Rangers Round-up

Well done to Matt, Joe and Bryan for a top pod cast. I particularly enjoyed the discussion on how Marti sets us up and Joe's suggestion that 3-4-3 could be the way to go. Changing to playing 3 at the back certainly transposed the fortunes for Warburton a few years back but wasn't particularly successful for Ainsworth who played a more direct style. I just can't see Marti changing from his possession style football but something has to change because we've been poor.

As things stand and with the players that Marti has had availble we've looked unbalanced and our defending of set pieces has gone back to the unorganised shambles of the past. In addition the decision making of players like Andersen and Madsen has been no where near good enough.

The return of Illias Chair should help but the team needs to improve in every area. The one thing that I would definitely expect to see is players like Dembele get more space to run at defenders as teams double up on the marking of Chair who they know is our best player.

At the moment even if Marti had a fully fit squad of players I'm not sure he would know his best team. We know that he prefers a 4-3-3 set up but who does he play in the central midfield role as nobody has really excelled or even been decent. In most of the other positions I believe the choice is pretty straight forward and he goes with,

Nardi
Dunne, Cook, JCS, Paal
Field, ??,Colback
Dembele, Frey, Chair,

His 2 main candidates for the central midfield role are Andersen and Madsen but both have looked lightweight and some of their decision making has caused all sorts of issues in defence. I suppose of the 2 he would prefer to play Madsen in that role because  he does add height when we're defending set pieces.

The trouble of course is that with injuries to JCS and Colback plus the weakness of whoever plays in Central midfield we have to play players out of position and our squad lacks the strength needed to compete against even the most average Championship teams. In January I'd imagine they will be straight back in for Isaac Hayden because unlike most of Marti's signings he is proven at this level.