Callum McGregor

One thing that is concerning is McGregor picking up a calf issue around this stage of the season for the last 3 seasons. Not sure if it’s the same calf but hopefully it’s not some underlying issue that he is constantly managing.

 

Was badly missed yesterday. We are blessed he spent his career with us

 

Was never a good sign when he retired from international football, he’s played a lot of football over the years and is only human after all. Might become a theme now, hope not obviously.

 

Classic bit of hyperbole there. Rate it.

McGregor started the previous two matches against the huns and we were as bad, if not worse in those two (certainly ay Ibrox). Suggesting that him starting would have made a huge difference is a stretch.

As I said, yesterday only reinforces that the way Rodgers sets our midfield up against them is flawed and he hasn’t fixed it yet. Doesn’t matter if it’s Engels, McGregor or Bernardo in that role. They’ve been marked out the game and ineffective the last 3 derbies.

 

Spot on. McGregor is a great player so of course we miss him when he doesn't play. But this narrative that we would have won if he was playing is miles off.

 

There's no guarantee we would have won with him in the team. However, we would have had a player willing to take the ball from anyone around him , our midfielders yesterday were not available like he always is. He will need replaced soon, and none of the current squad are able to do what he does. I'm not suggesting our midfield players are duds, just that they don't offer what Callum does.

 

We lost at Ibrox in January under similar circumstances with McGregor in the team, but even still we missed his organisation and leadership.
The blame lies firmly with Rodgers.

Either he doesnt have an answer to how they stifle us playing our from the back, or he struggles to motivate the players.

Make no mistake about it, this is a poor Rangers side not long off a defeat to Queens Park, now with a manager with very little experience at the top level.

This is a real black mark on Rodgers record, even with our current injuries.

 

Majorly clutching if you think we missed him yesterday. Wouldn’t have made any difference.

 

The game yesterday was completely different to the new year's one..

He maybe wouldn't have solidified us first half, as we were collectively all over the place.....but I guarantee when they were knackered and the gaps were wide open in the middle second half, he absolutely would've hurt them..

 

It wouldn't have made the slightest difference yesterday imo.

McGregor has been anonymous in the last three Hun games. Either hiding or pointing at somebody else to do their job, Peter Grant style.

And in any case, the Huns have twigged how to nullify us by putting a man on him, and stopping the flow of passes through the channels.

 

Completely different games, as I've already said..

A cup final
A game where we had a bug and wenr away to them and got our arses handed to us

Yesterday was different, we had ALL of the ball in the second half, and even towards the latter part of the first....against what ended up a completely knackered hun midfield that was wide open. Where McGregor really excels....and we didn't make the most of it..

 

Maybe.
If McGregor was on his game. And he has not been on his game against them for a long time.

It's all immaterial now, because he was out. The other midfielders we had available were not capable of doing that as a collective unit.

It's obvious where our main problem is, and has been for a long time. The midfield.

 

Wouldn't have made a difference for me either if he played, yesterday wasn't players playing poor or being outplayed.

It was tactics once again making it every difficult for us to play and very easy for them.

We make it easy by playing out short from the back, they know we do and they mark us. We then cannot play out unless we gamble and take risks with passes that aren't really on but there is no option but to do it after a while especially at home when the fans start going nuts at holding the ball at the back too long.

Our players are then playing under huge pressure on the ball at the back while the huns are basically resting.

Then when we invariably give it away in our own half which will continually happen by doing what we're doing our fans and players both become rattled and their players basically are laughing at how easy it is for them to play against us.

The 2nd half McGregor would have made a differance as I agree with the above he'd run with a ball and beat men and create more opening than our other midfielders and in the 2nd half they had ditched any type of tactics for old school parking the bus with 1 guy up the park and they let out defence recover the ball and come forward under no pressure with space and time. But the first half would have just been the same as it has been for about a year.

Even the 3-0 game we won at the start of the season it only really happened because we got in behind them a couple of times and spooked them early and then they tried to press us at the back and fell apart.

But they do not attempt to press us now as they don't need to and we play into their hands.

Their style of play we make easier by pressing them so when they kick it long whoever wins the ball they outnumber us in midfield and our style of play them make very difficult to pull off but we keep trying it and we play into their hands.

When we play them our players have very difficult jobs, we need to play very well and with great precision to do anything. While they don't really need to do anything other than wait on mistakes and openings that come from a very basic and easy way of playing.

 

Players playing poorly absolutely cost us yesterday. We shouldn’t be scoring 2 goals at home the huns and losing the game. Carter-Vickers and Johnston were both shocking.

 

But they were because they had no options to pass the ball to when on the ball except the keeper really, meaning they were stuck on the ball and under pressure and then they took the more risks on the ball which lead to them making more mistakes and playing more in a panic. Because they couldn't just keep passing it back and forward to each other via the keeper as fans were moaning.

I actually thought they stood out more because Schlupp and Nawrocki kept it more simple, they played like "im not the one whos going to make a mistake" maybe cause one never plays and the other is new. Where as CCV and Johnston both play every week and would be thinking he will slaughter me if I don't keep looking for the ball and trying to play it through so they were the ones who 9 times out of 10 tried to force the risky pass and were under the most pressure.

Also CCV tended to never pass to Nawrocki, Schlupp even would never throw the ball to Nawrocki from throw ins. It means the ball was almost always at CCV and Johnston as well.

Actually looking CCV and Johnston had 22.8% of the possession in the game compared to only 13.7% possession for Nawrocki and Schlupp, thats near unheard of for one side of the defence to have near double the possession of the other.

CCV and Johnston also played 56 passes more than Schlupp and Nawrocki. To put that into perspective the entire hun 11 + subs who played only made 141 passes. CCV and Johnston alone actually made more passes than the entire hun team. Thats how much they were on the ball and with no real options, constantly thinking and under pressure.