Holloway sprung a slight surprise by making one change to the team that had performed well against Cardiff City. Royce was in goal behind Bignot, Santos, Shittu and Rose. Rowlands, Langley, Bircham and Cook were in midfield behind a strike force of Nygaard and Baidoo. Furlong dropped to the bench to make way for the teenage striker.

Both teams signalled their attacking intentions from the off and tried to get the ball down and move it on a bobbly pitch. Baidoo managed two shots on target in the first ten minutes, both from outside the box, as he made a confident start. The youngster had clearly been buoyed by his cameo appearance against Cardiff and seemed brimming with confidence.

At the other end Royce had to be alert to deny on loan Manchester United striker Eddie Johnson when he broke through the Rangers defence. Something was clearly wrong in the back four as none of them seemed to be communicating with one another and the line had the look of a dog’s hind leg.

Even given the shakiness at the back it was against the run of play when Crewe took the lead through the aforementioned Johnson. Steve Jones turned Rose inside out and sped toward the Rangers box. He slipped the ball into Johnson who dispatched a low shot into the corner.

Rangers came straight back at them though and should have had a penalty when a Crewe defender stopped a through ball from Cook with his arm. It was clear cut but referee Wright was having none of it. Handball didn’t seem to be in his rule book given the amount of them that he either missed or ignored throughout the ninety minutes.

Bircham hobbled out of the action with what appeared to be a recurrence of his hamstring strain. Langley wasted a great chance following a short corner after he and Cook had worked a good opening. Langley’s shot was nearer the corner flag than the goal but it had been beautifully worked.

With thirty five minutes played Rangers were on level terms thanks to a goal from Cook. He won the ball from a Crewe defender and ran at the remainder of the Crewe defence and as they backed away he drilled a low shot straight at Ross Turnbull. It looked like a regulation save for the on loan ‘Boro keeper but it went straight through him and in.

The celebrations for that goal were still in full swing when Rangers took the lead. Cook again ran down the left before squaring a ball into the path of Langley. He tried a first time effort but it was blocked into the path of Ainsworth. He sent the ball into the box where Shabazz Baidoo was on hand to steer it into the corner of the net. It had been a great response from Rangers but more terrible defending meant that the lead lasted all of two minutes.

Johnson had been forced from the field through injury and his replacement Luke Varney had not even touched the ball when a ball pierced the Rangers back line. Varney ran onto it and sent an excellent strike past the exposed Royce. On the stroke of halftime it got even worse as more kamikaze defending gifted a third goal to Crewe.

Having already seen Royce make a decent save to deny Steve Jones the third goal, possession was again give away cheaply. A hospital ball was played to Rose on the left and Gary Roberts hammered him from behind. It looked like a freekick but play went on. Santos then went steaming in and missed Roberts by a mile and gave the midfielder time to pick out Steve Jones. His shot was poorly struck though but it fell into the path of Billy Jones and he had an easy task to prod the ball home.

Rangers had somehow managed to end a half they had had the better of a goal down. The defence had been an absolute shambles from the off and harsh words were clearly needed at halftime to get their heads right. Given that there was still time for a scare at the start of the half as yet more dodgy defending let Varney in again. The danger was averted but it seemed to wake people up. In particular Shittu came to the party and from this moment on he won every header and every challenge he went in to.

With ten minutes of the half gone Rangers drew level thanks to a stunner from Martin Rowlands. Rowly picked up the ball and when he couldn’t find a pass he decided to have a bash himself. His right footed shot was swerving away from Turnbull and in truth he did well to get a hand to it. The placement was perfect though and the ball slammed into the top corner.

Holloway was still not happy with the defensive shape and rather than bring on Milanese he decided to move Santos to right back, Bignot to left back and Rose to centre half! This didn’t last all that long though and Milanese was soon on in place of Santos and normality was restored. At the same time, Furlong was also sent on in place of the tiring Nygaard.

Rangers were absolutely dominant now and this was thanks in no small part to Shittu. He was like a one man wall at the back. The key was that he was using the ball sensibly when he won it and just giving it simply to Langley or Rowlands. Langley was having a belter in the middle and was pulling the strings and constantly switching the play from right to left.

Cook combined well with Langley to send the midfield man in on goal. Langley was knocked slightly off balance as he skipped over a challenge and this meant that his shot was not as well placed as it might have been. Turnbull produced an excellent save to deflect the ball away from the goal.

Furlong was going great guns up front with Shabazz and was showing some brilliant flashes of close control. Every ball that came near him was being gathered in and used efficiently. One such occasion led to Langley grabbing the winner.

Furlong took a ball from the back and played a neat ball into Langley. The situation was exactly the same as the one he had missed earlier but this time he gave Turnbull no chance as he slipped the ball past the Crewe keeper to send the travelling R’s fans wild.

It was almost five a couple of minutes later when Cook found himself in pace on the right wing after a corner had been cleared. He picked out Furlong with a brilliant pass and the strikers touch was top class as set himself up for a shot. This time Turnbull was equal to the effort and produced another top save at close quarters.

Crewe to their credit kept plugging away and gave the R’s defence a few frantic moments in the closing stages. Milanese and Shittu seemed to find themselves in the way of everything though and anything that got through was fielded with the minimum of fuss by Royce.

The final whistle drew a fabulous afternoon’s entertainment to a close and meant that Rangers had now picked up two wins on the bounce. This was more of a one sided game than the scoreline reflects, it was only defensive aberrations that allowed The Railwaymen to score three. The most pleasing thing about the game was that we looked as though we could score at will and thirteen shots on target would seem to reflect this.

The defence was terrible in the first half but much better in the second. Langley and Rowlands were excellent in the middle and when Cook stayed wide he did very well. He kept drifting infield and making things very congested. Up top Nygaard looked tired but still did some good work and alongside him Baidoo gave his most polished performance in the first team to date. His movement was excellent, his pace caused problems all afternoon and his finish for the goal was top quality. Furlong also did very well when he came on. I would fully expect Shabazz to drop out for Burnley and for Furlong and Nygaard to be back in tandem.

Burnley have just lost two on the bounce so they may be a little low on confidence coming into Monday’s game. Our confidence on the other hand should be sky high and we have to go all out to make it three wins on the bounce and make things look a little rosier in the Rangers garden.

simon@qprnet.com