Pat Nevin ‘astonished’ at Rangers footage he’s shown on BBC – ‘Never seen that before’
Russell Martin has got off to a nightmare start as Rangers manager after taking over earlier in the summer.
Criticism has been thrown at Martin from pretty much every direction, with supporters and pundits alike being less than impressed with him at times.
New signings like Nasser Djiga and Max Aarons have also failed to impress as the new Rangers era under Martin looks to be collapsing concerningly quickly for the 49ers.
Whilst Simon Jordan has suggested that Martin needs more time to make his desired impact at Ibrox, that may be a luxury that he is not afforded if results on the pitch do not improve.
Rangers’ defensive instabilities exploited by Club Brugge
Former Scotland international Pat Nevin was stunned at how poor Rangers were as they found themselves 3-0 down within the first 20 minutes at Ibrox on Tuesday night.
Whilst on punditry duties for the BBC’s Champions League Highlights show (20 August), Nevin analysed the second goal that Rangers conceded from a corner, which left the former Chelsea player “astonished.”
“I was actually astonished,” Nevin said.
“There are very simple things you do as a football team, if there’s a short corner, send one, probably two people out.
“What you don’t do is make sure there’s nobody out there, and you’re not ready for it at all.”
Nevin continued when watching footage of a defensive set-piece routine: “This absolutely staggered me.
“Nobody on the posts, and all the players short. Look at that gap – you always have a player on the 18-year-line, but there’s nobody there, it’s just unheard of. I’ve never seen that before.”
This cheap set-piece, along with the bizarre mistake from Djiga, never allowed Rangers to get into the game as they practically handed the visitors both goals on a silver platter.
- Rangers have conceded 10 goals in eight competitive matches under Martin
- Seven of those goals have come in the last three games
Martin has previously had issues dealing with set-pieces
Martin’s struggles with Southampton in the Premier League were well documented, but during his time at Swansea, they struggled to deal with set-pieces, which is becoming a running theme in Martin’s managerial career.
“We have a real problem, somehow, still, at defending set-pieces… The mentality is nowhere near strong enough. That’s on all of us… The goals we concede, they’re rubbish. We don’t make teams work for them,” Martin said whilst in charge of the Welsh outfit.
These comments could be repeated word for word in the dressing room for the goal from the corner that Rangers conceded on Tuesday night, and this is something Martin has to nip in the bud immediately.
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