| DEFENSIVE RICK LEAVES OLLY SICK
Rangers crashed to
their second away defeat inside a week against AFC Bournemouth at
Dean Court. This display was miles better than the pitiful showing
at Southend in the week and we should have taken something from the
game although a defensive howler put paid to that.
With Clarke Carlisle serving a
one-match ban for picking up five yellows Holloway was forced to
change the side. Day remained in goal and Matthew Rose dropped into
the back four to team up with Forbes, Shittu and Padula. Palmer came
into midfield alongside Marney, Bircham and Rowlands with Furlong
and Gallen continuing up front. Tony Thorpe made a welcome return to
the bench following injury.
Rangers made a shaky start with
Bournemouth forcing a succession of early corners, most of which
were gifted by poor clearances. There seemed to be a definite
hangover from Tuesday night and they needed to snap out of it
quickly.
It seemed to take an age for Rangers
to try their luck and the chance fell to Palmer who shot well wide
from just outside the box. Bournemouth should have opened the
scoring soon after when man mountain Steve Fletcher shot wide from
bang in front. Any sort of shot on target would probably have beaten
Day as he was so close but Rangers rode their luck.
Rangers' most potent threat seemed to
be Bircham and he hammered a shot straight into the arms of Neil
Moss in the Cherries goal. He seemed to be finding space to follow
up on the knockdowns of Gallen and Furlong. He had little choice but
to get forward as Palmer's distinct lack of mobility in the middle
of the park was being alarmingly highlighted. The skipper managed to
incur the wrath of wretched referee Scott Mathieson and earn himself
a caution.
Rose came within a whisker of opening
the scoring as the half time break approached. Following the play
from centre half he found himself thirty yards from goal and noticed
that the keeper was expecting the cross. Instead he hammered the
ball goalward and Moss had to be at his best to tip the ball over
the top. It was soon Day's turn to show his skills as he saved twice
from Warren Feeney in quick succession.
The second half started with both
sides going close to taking the lead. Firstly the dangerous Feeney
was denied by Rose and at the other end Rowlands latched onto a wild
shot from Bircham but could not find a way past Moss. There seemed
little danger to the Rangers goal though as Bournemouth, for all the
good movement of Feeney and brawn of Fletcher, were struggling to
create anything clear cut in the second period. That was until
Rangers intervened with some shocking defending.
The build up to the goal was farcical.
Firstly the linesman awarded Bournemouth a throw when the ball had
clearly sailed straight into touch and then moments later infuriated
the Rangers players and fans by doing the same again. Whether they
had momentarily lost their concentration I don't know but when
Fletcher tried to find Feeney with a hopeful ball their seemed
little danger. Rose and Shittu then decided that they would leave it
for each other and Feeney nipped in to beat the exposed Day with a
simple finish. It was defensive suicide and Holloway responded by
moving Forbes to centre back and Rose to right back in the hope that
the pace of Forbes would cover any more potential howlers.
Tony Thorpe replaced Marney and all of
a sudden, with Gallen in midfield, Rangers started to play. The
movement was sharp and some crisp inter-passing left Bournemouth
chasing shadows. Bircham went close with a low shot after a corner
and Furlong then hammered a freekick well wide of the target from
about thirty yards.
Furlong coughed up an even better
chance soon after following some excellent work from Thorpe. The fit
again hitman worked space on the right and cut a cross back from the
by-line into the path of Furs. On his right foot he sent the ball
wide without troubling the keeper. Earlier in the season he would
have tucked this away, no question, but he seems to have lost
something with this latest injury. I cant quite put my finger on it
but he doesn't seem as physical as he was and any pace that he had
left seems to be on the wane.
Rangers finally managed to get the
ball into the net with just over ten minutes remaining only to see
it ruled out for offside. Shittu latched onto a cross from the left
and thumped a header past Neil Moss only to see the flag go up. You
sensed that there wouldn't be much more left in the game for Rangers
as we had looked unlikely to score for most of the afternoon despite
some incessant pressure.
Gallen thought he had scored when his
close range shot was hacked off of the line and Moss was once again
on hand to deny Rangers when Bircham again fired a shot at goal only
for the big keeper to intervene. The last few minutes seemed to
consist of hopeful punts upfield and Bournemouth attempting to use
up as much time as the weak official would let them and it worked.
The whistle went and the reaction of the Bournemouth players and
fans showed just how much a win against Rangers means to teams in
this division.
We were unlucky not to take anything
from this game, on another day it would have been at least a draw as
apart from the second half howler Bournemouth didn't carry a massive
goal threat. When this is combined with some poor finishing from
Rangers and a decent display by Neil Moss the outcome was not too
much of a surprise.
The team as a whole looked unbalanced
and there was an alarming lack of pace in the side. Without McLeod
there is nobody that can inject that lightening burst to carry the
play away from the opposition and even on his most quiet of days he
is always something for opposing defenders to think about. We need
him back quickly and Olly must make it a priority to get some left
sided cover in at the club as the first team squad contains three
left footed players only, and one of them is Culkin!
It is back to the training ground to
reflect on a poor week for Olly and his boys now and to prepare for
another tough clash at Chesterfield next week. The Spireites have
been rolling over for all and sundry recently so you can almost
guarantee that they will play like Brazil when we turn up. A win is
a must; a draw at this stage is really not good enough as we don't
want to allow a rampant Bristol City side the chance to close the
gap any further. Lets hope that we get some people fit as well as
looking at the loan market for some left sided cover in the week and
lets go to Saltergate and get this week out of our systems.
simon@qprnet.com |
