Rangers Egg vs Progres Reason To Worry

While in a vacuum Rangers 0-0 draw vs Progres is nothing to fret over, it did bring bad flashbacks of last season.

On its own, while it was certainly not a pretty outing for Rangers, there wasn’t a great deal to fuss about in their 0-0 draw in Luxembourg. FC Progres were content to park the bus and showed almost no initiative to try and score. So Rangers, holding a 2-0 lead on aggregate, were fine to let it play out that way.

On top of that, nightmares of the Gers last visit to that cursed stadium meant that any Rangers fan was going to mostly be relieved by the fact that they simply advanced.

The issue comes when you consider that match in the context of last season and what Rangers hope to accomplish this season.

The vast majority of teams Rangers face in the Scottish Premiership will employ similar tactics as Progres of simply parking the bus, trying to muck up Rangers offense, and then hope to get lucky on a counter-attack.

Last season that style often proved problematic for Rangers. A lack of quality in the attacking third to make good on all the possession and good looks was probably the biggest issue the club had last season.

Take their first opponent of League play this season, Kilmarnock, Rangers faced them 4 times last season and came away with 2 draws and 2 losses. Steve Clarke’s great organization proved too much for Rangers to break and it led to losing points that Rangers couldn’t afford to drop.

Steven Gerrard seems well aware that this was Rangers largest issue last season, with the majority of his Summer moves bringing in players to help with the attack.

And yet, in just the 2nd round of European Qualifying, Rangers found a familiar story to much of last season. An inferior opponent parked the bus, and Rangers struggled to finish off looks. Even the first leg should’ve seen more goals for Rangers with the main takeaway being “need to finish those looks off.” The fact that it was followed by a 0-0 draw where they struggled to even create good looks makes it officially a worry.

The good news is that Rangers have a chance to squash these worries quickly, their next opponent in Europe should be much tougher and they start off their Scottish schedule with a difficult stretch as well. If they can succeed early on they will be flying high.

But if, Sunday afternoon, Rangers offense looks anemic and lacking in quality, real worries will be had about the team.