Italian newspapers react to Rangers performance v Napoli, Ben Davies torn to shreds for ‘disaster’
Rangers have been blasted by Italian newspapers for their performance in the 3-0 defeat to Napoli at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Giovanni Simeone made the most of lacklustre defending to score two goals in the space of five minutes in the first half before an 80th-minute header by Leo Skiri Ostigard rounded off the convincing win for the Group A leaders.
Rangers have lost every game and conceded 19 goals with just one group-stage match left this season.
It’s been an unimpressive showing in Europe this term and the Italian media have made that very clear.
Gazzetta dello Sport rated the Rangers players in their print edition on Thursday (27 October, page nine).
Ben Davies was described as “the worst” player with a 4.5/10 rating, with Gazzetta’s headline saying he had a “disaster evening” against Napoli.
They added: “Disastrous the test of the English central, who never manages to find the right measures on Simeone, always able to cut behind. And he never manages to find a solution to counter it.”
Gazzetta also slammed Rangers’ quality in their online match report, brutally saying: “[Rangers are] a team not up to the Champions League: PSV, which was eliminated by the Scots in the preliminary, would have done better.”
Corriere della Sera report that it was “all very simple” against Rangers
Corriere dello Sport also dubbed Davies as “the worst” in their ratings (print edition, 27 October, page seven) and also gave him a score of 4.5.
They wrote: “The smell of the Cholito (Simeone) that ignites and burns it repeatedly.”
Rotten
Leon King went off injured against Napoli so there’s a good chance Davies will be our only fit centre-back option going into the game against Aberdeen this week.
Van Bronckhost is under a lot of pressure at Ibrox and you can blame him for a lot of things that are going wrong right now.
But the continual injury issues at centre-back are just bad luck.
Connor Goldson, John Souttar, Filip Helander and now King could all be ruled out of that game against the Dons, meaning that van Bronckhorst will either have to play Borna Barisic or James Sands at centre-back.
Neither are naturals in that role but as he’s played there more often lately, we believe it should probably be Sands who partners Davies.
The former Liverpool defender hasn’t impressed in his first appearances as a Rangers player but he’s most certainly been thrown into the deep end.
Let’s hope he improves but the constant change of centre-back partner isn’t going to help him at all.
In other Rangers news, this Ibrox board member is “getting it in the neck” as an official partner calls for him to be sacked.