John Souttar dismal as Danny Rohl hooks best weapon – Rangers player ratings vs Roma
Rangers were beaten 2-0 by Roma as they continued their horrible run in the Europa League.
Despite Rangers supporters’ best efforts to get the players going Roma silenced them at Ibrox by going ahead in just the 13th minute as Matías Soulé turned in at the back post from a flicked on corner.
Artem Dovbyk got the wrong side of John Souttar on 36 minutes then calmly rolled across for Lorenzo Pellegrini to slot past Jack Butland.
The Light Blues weren’t catastrophic by any means but uninspired while simply looking inferior to their opposition.
They kept running for Danny Rohl, with the likes of James Tavernier, Connor Barron and Djeidi Gassama putting the miles in, but at no stage did they ever really look like turning things around, with Youssef Chermiti again unable to take the best two Rangers chances.
Danny Rohl removes most-threatening Djeidi Gassama after an hour
In such a tame performance for the most part it was difficult to pick out a shining star for Rangers, but while the game was still a contest in the first half Gassama looked the most likely to create something.
The Frenchman made multiple threatening breaks down the right-hand side even if he couldn’t find a teammate to apply the finishing touches.
Lacking support he was muscled out of possession in threatening areas a couple of times but at least looked like he had the direct running to put the visitors on the back foot.
Once he was removed by Rohl on the hour any danger he was likely to bring was lost, but given the European campaign hardly looks like being where the manager will find any success this term he perhaps can’t be blamed.
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John Souttar proves weak link at the back
The back line didn’t start the game in the same chaotic fashion it did in the first half of Rangers’ weekend defeat to Celtic but equally it didn’t take a herculean effort from Roma to get through them.
A near-post flick on took out the entire Gers side for the first goal and Souttar was caught out badly for Pellegrini’s second which pretty much ended the match as a contest.
He was somehow caught the wrong side of Dovbyk while failing to hold the line, and then was unable to cause the Ukrainian any difficulties in bringing the ball under control and putting the finish on a plate for his teammate.
A few shaky moments elsewhere added to a performance that wasn’t disastrous but just not of the level required to ever get anything against a quality opponent.
Souttar is the de-facto senior centre-back now, having outlasted the likes of Leon Balogun and Connor Goldson but didn’t command at the back as someone in his position needed to.
Rangers player ratings vs Roma
Jack Butland – 6
James Tavernier – 6
John Souttar – 3
Nasser Djiga – 5
Max Aarons – 5
Jayden Meghoma (off for Aasgaard ’46) – 5
Nico Raskin (off for Diomande ’60) – 6
Connor Barron – 6
Djeidi Gassama (off for Danilo ’61) – 7
Mikey Moore (off for Curtis ’81) – 6
Youssef Chermiti (off for Miovski ’73) – 5
Substitutes
Thelo Aasgaard – 6
Mohamed Diomande – 5
Danilo – 6
Bojan Miovski – 4
Findlay Curtis – 6
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