BT Sport pundit blasts ‘careless’ Fashion Sakala after what he saw Rangers forward do v Dundee
Kevin Thomson was less than impressed by Fashion Sakala’s first-half performance in Rangers’ Premier Sports Cup clash with Dundee at Ibrox on Wednesday night.
Sakala, 25, was back in the side after being an unused substitute at Motherwell at the weekend but it was clear the Zambian international was struggling on the right wing.
He and James Tavernier failed to link up effectively on the right-hand side of the pitch, leading to BT Sport pundit Thomson suggesting they’re not on the same wavelength.
“That’s careless by Sakala, really careless,”said Thomson on Premier Sports 1 on Wednesday night (19 October, 08:42pm).
“We saw James Tavernier five minutes ago just pass it off the pitch.
“They’re certainly on the wrong page.
“He’d have been one-on-one but he let it go.
“He needs to be brave enough to make things happen.”
A few minutes later, Thomson continued to criticise Sakala, saying: “It feels there’s no end-product there.”
Woeful
It’s a good job Sakala joined us as a free agent because he’s been pretty poor since joining us last year.
The former Oostende attacker made his 58th appearance for Rangers against Dundee on Wednesday and while he’s scored 13 goals and supplied eight assists in those games, they’ve pretty much all been against the weaker teams in the Scottish Premiership and in cup games.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst didn’t seem to trust Sakala in the opening months of this season but he’s started to play him more recently.
Fixtures are piling up and that has led to Sakala being forced to play on the right-wing, which might not be ideal for him as he’d probably want to be up front as the striker.
But with Antonio Colak and Alfredo Morelos in the side, Sakala is third-choice striker if he’s lucky – especially with Kemar Roofe now back from injury.
Sakala doesn’t have the cutting edge to be a winger, nor the vision to be able to pick out a good cross.
He wants to cut inside but Tavernier likes to do the same from right-back too so it doesn’t really work having them both on the pitch.
In other Rangers news, this Gers player “knows he’s done” after BBC Sportscene shared footage of him.