Ibrox View: Three things we learnt from Rangers win v St. Johnstone
Rangers jumped back to the summit of the Scottish Premiership on Wednesday evening with a 3-0 win over St. Johnstone.
Goals from Borna Barisic, Ryan Kent, and Joe Aribo ensured that the Gers maintained their 100% record in the league, and opened up a five point lead over bitter rivals Celtic, who will be out of action for a while following Boli Bolingoli’s breach of quarantine protocols last week.
And while the Hoops stutter, the Gers are going from strength to strength.
Wednesday’s win made it three matches, nine points, seven goals, and no goals conceded.
You could hardly ask for a better start to our title push.
But it’s also important that we don’t get too far ahead of ourselves, so before we start planning the trophy parade just yet here are three things we learnt from the midweek win over St. Johnstone:
1. Borna Barisic is a star.
There can be no arguments, the Croatian is the best left-back in Scotland.
After a fairly sluggish start to proceedings, it was the 27-year-old who gave his side a shot in the arm with a sublime free-kick that left the keeper absolutely stranded.
That alone might have been enough for him to take home the lion’s share of the plaudits on Wednesday, but Barisic then followed up his heroics with another piece brilliance for Kent’s second just before half time.
After a free-flowing move in which Rangers finally looked as if they were finding their rhythm, Barisic pulled his usual party trick of popping up on the left flank after a lung-busting overlap.
Rather than blindly firing a ball across the face of goal and hoping for the best, however, he gets his head up and cuts back a pinpoint pass for Kent to sweep home on the volley.
It’s little wonder that Mark Wilson has claimed he is the “best left-back in the country”.
2. McLaughlin is a superb deputy
The decision to sign Jon McLaughlin on a free transfer from Sunderland this summer already looks like a wonderfully smart piece of business from the Gers.
The 32-year-old has had to deputise for Allan McGregor in Rangers’ past two matches after the veteran picked up a knock against Bayer Leverkusen last week, and he has done everything with calmness and composure.
McLaughlin is still yet to concede a goal for Rangers, and Wednesday’s performance was arguably his best yet.
The Gers dominated the match, true, but the stopper still had a couple of saves to make, including a smart parry lower to his right with the scores still tied at 0-0.
There will be plenty of bigger tests to come in his Rangers career, but at every juncture, the Scotland international is proving why we moved so quickly to land him.
3. Still more to come from Gerrard’s men.
Make no mistake, this was a top performance.
It might have taken us a little while to get going, but as soon as that Barisic free-kick hit the back of the net, there were never any doubts about which way this contest was going.
But despite having 75% possession, it never really felt as if the Gers got out of third gear.
This was, ultimately, quite a relaxed affair, so much so that Steven Gerrard even spoke out after the match, criticising his players for getting “really sloppy” once they had hit their third.
That kind of perfectionism certainly isn’t a bad thing, from our point of view as supporters, it’s exciting to think about how much more this Gers side has left in the tank.
In other Rangers news, Darren Fletcher has backed this Gers talent for big season in 20/21 after impressive showing v Aberdeen.