Giovanni van Bronckhorst furious with James Tavernier after incident in Rangers v Liverpool
Giovanni van Bronckhorst was “furious” with James Tavernier in the first half of Rangers’ 7-1 defeat to Liverpool at Ibrox on Wednesday night for squandering possession too easily.
Not long after Liverpool equalised, 30-year-old right-back Tavernier tried to find John Lundstram with a pass in the middle of the park but it didn’t have any real pace on it and was easily intercepted by Liverpool.
It sprung a dangerous-looking counter-attack for the Reds but luckily for Tavernier, Connor Goldson was on hand to snuff out any danger.
Steve McManaman slammed Tavernier for his misplaced pass while BT Sport commentator Darren Fletcher noted how unhappy van Bronckhorst was with his captain’s poor play.
“Another sloppy pass from Tavernier,” said McManaman on BT Sport 2 (12 October, 08:25pm).
Darren Fletcher said: “Van Bronckhorst is furious.”
McManaman added: “Tavernier has to be careful playing that ball across the pitch like that.
“This pass here across the field like that. Oof.”
Poor
Tavernier didn’t have the best of nights, did he?
Roberto Firmino scored Liverpool’s opener at a corner kick.
Tavernier was marking him at the front post but got completely caught under the ball and failed to even try and stop the Brazilian from scoring.
And then this misplaced pass could have been a problem for Rangers if it wasn’t for Goldson’s brilliant challenge on Darwin Nunez.
It’s what we’ve come to expect from Tavernier though.
He’s 30 years old now and has played over 360 times in all competitions for the Light Blues.
We know that he’s amazing going forward. But defensively, he’s almost always been a liability and he has cost us a lot of goals over the years.
Tavernier has been an outstanding servant to this club but does a succession plan need to come into place at right-back now?
In other Rangers news, there’s been yet another high-profile exit from behind the scenes at Ibrox.