Doug Ward

Thu 3 November 2022 18:53, UK

The post-mortem of Rangers’ Champions League shocker is well and truly underway as they wrote themselves into the record books for all the wrong reasons this week.

Rangers’ 3-1 defeat to Ajax meant that the Scottish side’s campaign in Europe this season will go down as the worst ever in the Champions League group stages.

Zero points, six defeats, two goals scored and 22 goals conceded. Embarrassing.

Although we didn’t expect to finish anywhere other than fourth in Group A after drawing Liverpool, Napoli and Ajax, the fact that the players just rolled over to have their bellies tickled in every single game is telling.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst has to take the majority of the blame. In September, after the 4-0 defeat to Ajax, he threw in the towel right away by saying that the Gers cannot compete in the Champions League [Daily Mail].

If the manager’s going to wave the white flag after matchday one – what’s the point?

But the players didn’t help themselves.

James Tavernier went missing from post-match interviews, Ryan Kent went missing on the pitch, Alfredo Morelos has just gone missing full-stop.

And now, left-back Borna Barisic has taken to an interview with the media to make an excuse for his own and his teammates’ shortcomings in Europe this term by saying that even Ajax are better than Borussia Dortmund, who we beat in the Europa League last season.

“No one expected that we would do well in the Europa League and we went into the Champions League and tried to play our part … I mean, there are clubs with squads of £400, 500, 600million. Our group was very tough, but we need to respect the opponent and talk about that also,” said Barisic, as quoted by Football Scotland.

“With all due respect, I don’t think Dortmund are better than Napoli, or Liverpool, or even Ajax. That’s my opinion at this moment. Sometimes results show you. They are not the same level as last season, you can see that. We also had a very hard group and we have not been at that level. You can see our results, that’s the reality. They are just better than us.”

It’s an excuse that’s really hard to agree with.

Dortmund are one of the best teams in Europe in one of the strongest leagues in Europe.

Ajax, with respect to them, are not as good as Dortmund.

Absolutely no way.

You could even argue that the German giants are better than Napoli, although the Italian side’s form in Europe and in Serie A this season suggests it may be otherwise.

Either way, talking down Dortmund is talking down the achievements last season.

It’s an absolutely shocking cop-out.

But that’s not a surprise based on the gutless performances we’ve seen from Barisic recently.

In other Rangers news, a “crazy situation” has emerged at Ibrox that’s led to this star player being “gone” from the club.