Yet another day and yet another disappointing draw for Rangers in the Scottish Premiership.
On Sunday afternoon, Russell Martin’s Gers failed to leave their away clash with all three points, taking the lead on the cusp of half-time through Bojan Miovski, only for Henry Cartwright’s long-range strike to pinch a deserved point for lowly Falkirk.
This means the Ibrox side have still won only one of seven Premiership fixtures, this coming at Livingston last Sunday, drawing five, including a quartet of 1-1s, thereby leaving them 8th, a whopping 11 points adrift league leaders Hearts.
Amazingly, Rangers are now without a clean sheet in 23 away games across all competitions, breaking the unwanted club record set in 1897.
Thus, ahead of an international break, the spotlight will once again be pointed in Martin’s direction, but could he save his job by dropping a player labelled “one of the worst players to ever play” for the club?
Joe Rothwell: Yet to make much of an impression
The surprise team news ahead of Sunday’s clash with Falkirk was the return to midfield of Joe Rothwell, having begun the last six matches among the substitutes.
Well, his return didn’t last too long, hooked after 70 minutes, replaced by Mohamed Diomandé, having made little discernible impact on the game.
The Englishman touched the ball only 32 times, that’s five fewer than goalkeeper Jack Butland, while losing possession on five occasions, neither of which is ideal for a player at the base of midfield, supposedly there to control the tempo and dictate play.
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However, he was not the summer signing who caught the eye for the wrong reasons most in Falkirk.
Rangers forward was as bad as Rothwell
When Mikey Moore arrived at Rangers in the summer on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, he did so with sky-high expectations.
The 18-year-old is incredibly highly rated by Spurs supporters, with David Hytner of the Guardian outlining his ‘many qualities’, including dribbling and finishing, labelling him a ‘rare talent’ who is ready to make a massive impact on the Tottenham first team.
By scoring against Elfsborg in a Europa League tie back in January, Moore became Spurs’ youngest scorer in a European competition, breaking Jimmy Greaves’ record that had stood since 1957.
Well, so far, Rangers supporters have seen none of this.
To date, in ten appearances for the Gers, Moore is yet to score a goal, while his only assist came against third-tier Alloa Athletic in a League Cup clash in August and, as you can see, scorer Nedim Bajrami did do most of the work!
Having been on the bench against Sturm Graz on Thursday, Moore did come into the starting lineup on Sunday, but was replaced by Oliver Antman on the hour mark, and his statistics make for grim reading.
Attempted dribbles
4
5th
Successful dribbles
2
6th
Accurate passes
13
18th
Shots on target
Zero
7th
Shots off target
Zero
12th
Key passes
Zero
11th
Crosses
2
11th
Duels contested
8
18th
Duels won
4
19th
Touches
36
16th
As the table documents, Moore registered zero shots and zero key passes, ranked lowly for passing, chance creation, duels and touches too, being generally anonymous throughout.
This led to the teenager being described as “one of the worst players to ever play for” the club by one Gers content creator on X, representative of the general sentiment from those in Govan.
Thus, when Martin is leaving out Oliver Antman, who has shown flashes of brilliance at times since arriving from Go Ahead Eagles, fans are very much not on board with Moore’s inclusion.
If he remains in charge for the visit of Dundee United in a fortnight, then perhaps leaving the Spurs loanee on the bench may be the way to go.
