Ibrox View: Counterattacking prowess is important weapon in Rangers arsenal under Gerrard
Rangers don’t always win their matches in the most orthodox way.
As examined by Ibrox News before, the Gers have a tendency to turn out more efficient attacking displays when they have less of the ball.
But the numbers would seemingly suggest that this trend goes beyond simple possession percentages.
PPDA measures how many passes a team allows their opponent to have in any given attack, on average.
In Rangers’ case, over the past calendar year, they have managed to limit teams to 9.6, while their opponents generally faced 14.03 passes from the Gers, as per Wyscout.
There have been some big exceptions though.
Against SC Braga, they faced 29.57, while OGC Nice managed over 35 passes per attack in preseason.
Interestingly, however, Rangers managed to weather both of those storms, and actually won both of those matches.
But there appears to be a reason for this relatively unusual stat.
The Gers have pace in abundance with the likes of Ryan Kent and Joe Aribo in the side, and they actually perform much better than their opponents when it comes to launching counter-attacks.
Steven Gerrard’s men average 3.33 counters per game.
That figure is considerably higher than their opponent’s 1.88, while they are 18.6% more likely to get a shot away at the end of their move, as pictured by the graph above.
What we saw in both the Braga and Nice matches, however, is that Rangers registered more counter-attacks than average, and recorded 33% more shots from counters than they usually do as well.
And while you can bet that Gerrard would be much more comfortable with his side being the ones dictating the tempo and direction of a match, these figures suggest that the Gers are actually pretty well set up to operate under a Plan B if needed.
That diversification of Rangers’ style of play has been one of the triumphs of Gerrard’s tenure, and could be a key factor in bringing success back to Ibrox in the near future.
In other Rangers news, Ibrox View: Solid display proves that Mayo deserves chance to replace injured defensive colleague Nikola Katic.