Rangers boss Beale at fault again as transfer failings exposed by tactical change
Rangers boss Michael Beale is once again the architect of his own downfall after the transfers he spearheaded in the summer are not suitable to match his current formation, with wingers an important miss.
Beale’s original intentions this season were to play a narrow formation, without wingers, and use the likes of Sam Lammers and Todd Cantwell as the creative influences with two strikers expected to share the goalscoring burden.
Now, though, the difficult start to the season which had led to calls for his sacking at Ibrox has pushed him to change his style, now using more direct attacking wingers to create for a lone striker. The problem is, Rangers didn’t sign many wingers.
Abdallah Sima arrived as the only wide player of Beale’s £13million window, while the likes of Lammers, Cyriel Dessers and Danilo came in as striking options, while Kieran Dowell and Jose Cifuentes added further depth to his midfield options.
On top of this, Ryan Kent was allowed to leave the club for free without being adequately replaced. These transfer calls, combined with the ongoing injury crisis at the club, have left Beale short out wide and forced him to explore his options.
Scott Wright, who looked certain to leave the club over the summer [Daily Record, 19 July], started the Scottish Premiership clash against Motherwell in a surprise inclusion from the manager, but he felt he needed to rest players and Wright was the only option in that position.
Now, Rabbi Matondo has picked up an injury Beale describes as “a bad one” [The National, 24 September], leaving the boss with Wright, Sima and 17-year-old Zak Lovelace as his only options out wide.
There had been questions surrounding the Englishman’s ability to build a squad, and the trust put in him by the board at Rangers as they backed his every call, and those doubts may now have come to fruition with options limited ahead of the League Cup quarter-final.
£13million spent, nine new arrivals, and yet a subtle change in formation which was meant to improve results – and has done so far – has exposed a glaring weakness in the squad that could easily have been addressed in the summer.
In other Rangers news, one BBC pundit was stunned by what he saw of Rangers live on air.