One thing we’ve learned about Philippe Clement is, if he gets it wrong, he isn’t hesitant to make changes to improve what would be a sluggish Rangers performance.
Against Kilmarnock, things clearly weren’t right, the middle was being left out and the front three were feasting off crumbs.
He’s done it before, and no doubt he will do it again but, Philippe Clement making two changes for Rangers at half-time reveals that he understood he got things wrong from the start.
He gets forgiven on this occasion given how fast he handled some of the concerns.
The main difficulty though, is that it was nearly entirely self inflicted and I don’t mean picking 2/10 rated Borna Barisic.
We told ourselves it was going to be tough, that it was going to be physical, that the pitch would be a factor and that we’d have to adapt our game plan.
Clement will have learned not to be too obsessed with the opposition in the Scottish Premiership because, in the second half, we saw a team that resembled the one that we have seen previously.
One plays with pace, energy and aggression.
In the first half, we were too direct, played too many long balls and we couldn’t have any control in the final third as a result because the midfield were performing 50-yard shuttles for 45 minutes.
Yes, the pitch isn’t fantastic, but the weather circumstances meant that we could still pass the ball about or take players on.
That Clement remarked post match about the result all being on the players says it all.
He understands that the first half was on his instructions and that they dug him out a pretty deep hole with a tactical adjustment or two.
The Gers boss is a fast learner and you would like to assume that we won’t see a similar mistake made the next time we are away from the beautiful surface of Ibrox.
Credit where it is due though because it didn’t appear like the same team in the second half.
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