Rangers infamous handbrake must be fully off for first OId Firm of the season

Ever since Michael Beale arrived at Rangers back in November last year, he’s spoke about wanting to see his side take off the handbrake and play on the front foot.

During his first few months in the main job at Ibrox, he was hamstrung in several ways from doing this to the full.

Be it an never-ending injury list or a crop of players on their last legs in terms of their Rangers career, Beale was working to simply get the best out of what he had and it resulted a results first approach to some games.

Granted, improvements were clear to see, especially once the likes of Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin arrived in the January transfer window, but it was always believed that we wouldn’t get the free-flowing, attacking Rangers we were expecting under Beale until he was able to fully put his stamp on the side.

With nine players brought in over the summer (at time of writing, it is Deadline Day of course) and several of the old guard being shown the door, it was hoped that the wait wouldn’t be a long one.

However, almost one month into the new season, and bar a dynamic 10 minute spell towards the end of the win against Livingston at Ibrox, this hasn’t fully happened as of yet.

This has been as a result of a couple of factors. In some cases, it has been a case of the new attacking players not quite yet gelling together as quickly as you’d like, especially when a combined fee of £15m has been shelled out on them.

On other occasions, it has been down to the tactical approach Beale has chosen to go with – something which was worryingly evident away to PSV during the week.

The manager made the decision to play with two flat banks of four to attempt to nullify any threat from the Dutch outfit, with Cantwell being the man chosen to essentially partner Cyriel Dessers despite being best in the deeper attacking midfield role.

That doesn’t represent a handbrake off style approach.

Not only that, but anyone who has watched PSV to any extent this season will have known that their defence was there for the taken, so even if one other striker had been selected to play, with the likes of Cantwell and Rabbi Matondo supporting, then we may have seen a different outcome.

Granted, there was every chance it could have left the defence exposed a bit more for longer of the game, but it may have also hit the home side’s confidence and allowed ours to grow.

At this present point, Celtic’s defensive situation could be viewed as similar to PSV, especially given the fact that several of their key players in this area have either left or are out due to injury.

Not only that, but recent games have saw Brendan Rodgers’ side struggle creatively, with no goals scored in their last two games against Kilmarnock and St Johnstone.

For me, Beale has to look at this situation and grasp it with both hands.

We can’t be worried too much about working to stop the threats of the opposition. We need to instead maximum our strengths.

Why have both John Lundstram and Ryan Jack in the one team to potentially help protect the defence against attacking full backs when instead, we could have both Cantwell and Sam Lammers in from the start to get into those areas of space in front of the Celtic back four to help create those opportunities for players like Dessers and Danilo to get between the posts and score some goals.

For this Rangers side to truly progress to the next level, we need to spell blood when its open on our opponents. We can’t continue to worry on what they might do. Pressure them hard high up the pitch and create chances, then the game will speak for itself.

If we can’t do it now against a Celtic side out of form, then when can we do it. Steven Gerrard’s side did it perfectly three years ago. This is Beale’s chance to do the same now.