St Mirren vs Rangers

After a bruising 3-1 defeat to Club Brugges in the midweek Champions League qualifier, it’s back to domestic business with St Mirren next on the SPFL fixtures list. Where Rangers have gotten off to a poor start in the league, somehow St Mirren have bettered that with a narrow loss to Celtic and a draw vs Motherwell seeing them sit with a point less than us, following draws to Motherwell and Dundee.

As expected by most, St Mirren will likely play deep as they have done in their first two games, relying on quick effective counter attacks for goals. In defence they will be solid and compact. Below is the average position and pass map for their first two games.

In both games we can see they sit in a lot but vs Celtic (the closest blue print to how they will line up against us) we can see that not only were the 3 central defenders pegged back for most of the game, but so were the two wingbacks, who were almost in line with the centre backs on average.

We can also see a dominance to the right in attack. In previous Rangers games we’ve seen sides target the left (our right) to look for joy so this will bring a different balance to the game, with Meghoma likely to see a test of his defensive credentials and Gassama will need to pitch in to support as well.

Many people weren’t happy when Martin was named and that was more to do with his previous managerial record than lack of foreign name, dodgy haircuts or misspent time with us as a defender. Notably Martin’s sides tend to roughly break even on goals with them conceding around the same number as they score. Unfortunately, early signs point to this trend continuing with Rangers. There is also a low win percentage across his managerial career which is fine at most clubs, however at Rangers would be considered completely unacceptable.

All that aside, Martin is the man in the hotseat just now and he will need to find solutions to overcome stuffy domestic sides. Let’s look at exactly what we are likely to see in the upcoming game, this weekend.

First up is the backline where are likely to see the least change, mainly because he is extremely limited in this area. In goals, Butland is likely to continue. He conceded three vs Brugges but in all reality, without him that score could have been much worse and he didn’t do much wrong for any of that goals, other than a potential debate between him and Djiga for the first (my money is on Djiga being at fault there)

For the back four, the only real debate is at right back. Expect Meghoma to start on the left with Souttar and Fernandez in the centre. Djiga will miss this one with him serving his one match ban for a last man foul vs Dundee. Fernandez did look pretty assured against Alloa, doing little wrong so this will be a good test for him against a slightly higher level of opposition.

On the right of defence Martin does have an option and it will be telling to see who he picks. Captain, James Tavernier is oft maligned by fans, desperate to blame someone for our woes. He has however, scored in both our league games to date and generally links play forward well, whilst perhaps not being great defensively. Aarons was bought in to challenge Tav and his perceived strengths are different to Tavernier’s with him being a more defensive type of fullback. Unfortunately this hasn’t been shown in his games yet. It was easy to excuse when he was being played out of position at left back but now he has had some games at right back, I’m just not seeing it. I would expect Tavernier to come in for this one.

In the middle, we’ve got another dilemma for Martin. The Rothwell experiment hasn’t really works and whilst he looks good on the ball, he hasn’t got the range of passing that we need to build play from there. Most fans wanted Raskin in there instead and we got that wish vs Brugges but he also flattered to deceive in his preferred position. Personally I would go with Raskin again for his more combative nature, which will be useful against the physical strength of St Mirren. Infront of them I would expect to see Aasgaard and Cameron deployed.

Up front the striker role is already settled. Dessers was deemed not ready for this game at all in Martin’s presser and Igamane isn’t ready to start, which means another outing for Danilo. Whilst he got his first competitive goal midweek, he needs to do much more to influence the game outside of scoring.

On either side of Danilo, it’s a case of choosing two players from the pool of three. I think here, Antman may drop out for a rest. He started that Plzen game really well but hasn’t been able to recapture that form since. This would be a good chance to rest him and give Moore a second start to stake a claim for a place. On the left, the on form Gassama has to start.

With all this in mind, I am expecting a 2-1 win for Rangers with goals from Gassama and Aasgaard sealing the deal for us and getting our first win on the board.