Massive were the expectations from Rangers this season after they managed to get their place back in the Premiership after four years of absence from the top tier but have the Gers been able to fulfil those? Well, it was probably too big of an ask from them to win the Premiership right after their comeback. Otherwise, Rangers have done quite a decent job in their comeback season to the Premiership.
They are pretty much in control of the second place in the League table, ahead of the likes of Hearts, Aberdeen and St. Johnstone which is not a bad thing at all.
What has changed?
In early stages of the season, it was clear that Warburton was yet to find out his best XI but slowly over the course of time, he has been able to identify that. The Gers made a lot of signings in the summer including some big names like Barton and Kranjcar but truth to be told, the Gers have failed to get the best out of their summer signings. Barton’s career came to an immature end as he did what he does best while Kranjcar went down to a season-ending injury.
As we have reached the halfway mark in the season, hardly any of the summer signings are in the best possible Rangers XI. The likes of Halliday, Kiernan, Wilson, Wallace, Tavernier, Foderingham, McKay, and Miller remain key players at Ibrox which tells the story about Rangers’ success in the transfer market.
However, it also has to be taken into account that the set of players, whom the Gers did not consider good enough for the Premiership, have proven to be way better than those who were brought in to provide the quality.
What still needs to change?
Even though Rangers are pretty much in control of the second spot, they seem way far off from the quality that Celtic have at their disposal. The hunger from the fans to close the gap on Celtic is understandable but they have to realise that it’s not something you can achieve overnight.
If you look at the Celtic team closely, you can easily find out the fact that they have too many match winners in their team, unlike Rangers. Griffiths, Dembele and Sinclair have scored more than 40 goals in all competitions this season while the three Rangers strikers have just 18 goals between them. Rangers lack that X-factor which is needed to fight for the title and Celtic have more than one. This is something that Warburton has to change.
