After the poor showing at Luton many had hoped that there would be some fresh faces in the starting XI for this one. No such luck I am afraid as it was a case of same old same old. Royce was in goal behind Bignot, Shittu, Santos and Rose. Ainsworth, Langley, Lomas and Cook were in midfield with Nygaard and Furlong up front. Marcin Kus made the bench for the first time and Taylor was once again left sat on his arse as his loan spell dwindles away into nothing.

Things started badly for Rangers when only half of them ran out of the tunnel at the start of the game! It set a general malaise that was present for the rest of this turgid encounter. Things could have been very different though of they had managed to hold onto the early lead handed to them by Ainsworth.

Ainsworth got the ball on the right and passed inside before carrying on into the box. The ball was fed out to Cook on the left and he sent in a precision cross that was met on the run by Ainsworth. His header was fierce and left Scotland keeper Rab Douglas clawing at thin air as it whistled past him.

The celebrations had hardly finished when Rangers gifted Leicester a shambolic equaliser. A long ball was not dealt with by either Shittu or Santos as Matty Fryatt sniffed about. Shittu finally decided to intervene and made a hash of it and fell over. Santos then tried to help his mate but was felled by the skipper as he tried to get to the ball. Fryatt had a simple chance and smashed the ball past the hopelessly exposed Royce.

From that moment the game went downhill at a rate of knots as two terrible sides played the sort of football you wouldn’t show to prisoners at Camp X-Ray in order to make them crack. Rangers played their usual brand of aimless hoofball whilst Leicester faffed about in midfield a bit until one of our defenders handed them an opening. This happened a lot as they were all having a ‘mare but luckily they were showing the sort of cutting edge that had taken them into the bottom three. Rose in particular was having one of those games he is prone to where he looks like a player that shouldn’t be playing at a Sunday league level. His control was abysmal and was matched only by his passing, heading and tackling.

Rangers were managing to eek out the odd chance but it never looked like Nygaard or Furlong would tuck one of them away. Furlong had a good chance at the far post from a Cook cross but failed to test the keeper. Nygaard came close to tucking it away but he was having a terrible night by his usual high standards.

Late in the half Royce produced an excellent save to deny Alan Maybury after the Irishman struck a fierce volley goalward. He should have done better given the time that he was afforded by the standoffish defence. At the other end Furlong missed another good chance at the far post when Douglas turned his header wide.

Half time was welcomed by the fans more than the players as this had been an awful game to watch to this point. Things were somehow getting worse though as the players started to take their frustration out on the people of White City as they launched an aerial bombardment of the streets around the ground. One ball flew over the School End, two over Ellerslie Road and another over South Africa Road as the players plumbed new depths.

An awful game was not being helped by the continuing interjection of the whistle happy referee. Mr Thorpe was dragging a bad game down a level by blowing for the slightest infringement and was generally being a pain in the Gregory.

Holloway made his first change after 65 minutes when Baidoo came on for the ineffective Nygaard. Shortly after, Rangers had the ball in the net only to be denied by the linesman’s flag. A ball into the box wasn’t cleared and Cook fired in a shot from twenty yards. The ball fell to Ainsworth who fired home but he was well offside in truth.

With twelve minutes left Leicester took the lead thanks to young full back Richard Stearman. Yet more amateur hour defending allowed the diminutive Wesolowski time and space to pick out the unmarked right back at the far post and he gunned the ball home. Once more Royce was left wondering exactly what had happened to a back four that had disintegrated in front of him.

Leicester didn’t hold the lead for long though before gifting an equaliser to Rangers. Johansson fouled Ainsworth for the umpteenth time on the edge of the box and Cook sent over a ball to the back post. It looked to have been over hit until Shittu appeared to head into a gaping net from the tightest of angles.

This prompted Holloway to make two final changes. Donnelly and Moore replaced Ainsworth and Furlong. Quite why it took until the 84^th minute with the score at 2-2 to do this is beyond me. He had no intention of changing it at 1-1 so what is so different. God forbid we should try and beat a team in the bottom three at home!

The subs had been on for barely four minutes before once again Rangers gift wrapped The Foxes a goal. Richard Stearman was allowed to dance down the Leicester right flank past the hopeless Rose and pull a ball back into the six yard box. No bugger wanted to know about it apart from Stephen Hughes and he rolled the ball home from three yards to win it.

Rangers were never likely to get back into the game and in truth we should probably be grateful they didn’t conspire to concede another one. This was an awful display and the players have to take a long hard look at themselves after this. They were terrible all over the park and should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. If Leicester had played well to win this then you could maybe accept it but they didn’t have to. They made a poor side look average through their own blundering attempts at playing what was once called the beautiful game.

The same goes for the manager who provided precious little in the way of inspiration. After the game he criticised the back four yet left two defenders kicking their heels on the bench whilst they watched their colleagues make mistake after mistake. Taylor must wonder why he bothered coming down here for a month, I am pretty sure it wasn’t for the weather.

I can’t really be arsed to go into a long critique of the players or the manager and if I did we would still be sitting here on Friday night. Suffice to say that it wasn’t good enough and things need to be shaken up. Excuses will be trotted out no doubt to the effect that we have injuries, blah, blah, blah but that wont cut any ice with me any more.

Things need to be changed on Saturday or a dull season is in serious danger of having a terrible ending. If we don’t learn to defend then we are, to use the lingo of the snooker hall, fucked.

simon@qprnet.com