{"id":305474,"date":"2025-11-24T11:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305474\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T11:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:37:09","slug":"rangers-face-taxing-questions-over-how-danny-rohl-will-nurse-this-mess-of-a-side-ibrox-truth-is-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305474\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers face taxing questions over how Danny Rohl will nurse this mess of a side \u2013 Ibrox truth is out"},"content":{"rendered":"

A squad that was already operating with a massive quality deficit has been hit by a string of serious injury blowDanny Rohl<\/p>\n

This week, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will spell out how she plans to fix the nation\u2019s broken economy.<\/p>\n

But the question taxing the minds of the Rangers support is just how will Danny Rohl<\/a> be able to nurse this mess of an Ibrox side through to January?<\/p>\n

A squad that was already operating with a massive quality deficit has been hit by a string of serious injury blows over the international break.<\/p>\n

John Souttar<\/a> was as close as Rohl had to a dependable figure at the back but it looks like the stopper will be out of action until the end of next month after straining a muscle in the minutes ahead of Tuesday\u2019s Scotland thrill ride at Hampden.<\/p>\n

Derek Cornelius has added some much needed experience too at the back but the Canada international is set to be out for even longer after suffering his own misfortune last week.<\/p>\n

And in Mikey Moore, Gers were starting to see flashes of the talent that have seen the Spurs kid tipped as the next big thing down down White Hart Lane.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s also looking at a month or maybe more on the sidelines after joining the Ibrox casualty list.<\/p>\n

The news that \u00a38million man Youssef Chermiti<\/a> is also crocked might actually come as a relief to the punters given the paucity of his positive contributions so far but for Rohl, these knocks are a cost of living crisis he could most certainly do without.<\/p>\n

The three points banked against basement boys Livingston kept the German gaffer\u2019s Premiership four-match winning run going.<\/p>\n

But it was a dismal display that suggested there could be further hardships to come for a support<\/a> still reeling from the ruinous Russell Martin experiment.<\/p>\n

The numbers laying out the summer\u2019s disastrous \u00a340million rebuild did not show on the financial results released by the club last week.<\/p>\n

A loss of \u00a314.8m was registered in the year up to June but those figures don\u2019t account for the summer\u2019s massive spend, nor the substantial sums generated by the sales of Cyriel Dessers, Hamza Igamane, Ridvan Yilmaz and Jefte.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s harder to tally up is why a team that has had so much invested in it over the summer is now so short in so many areas.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s now no natural cover at left back, a shortage of creative options in midfield and dearth of goals up front.<\/p>\n

A penny, then, for Rohl\u2019s thoughts as he attempts to work out how on earth he\u2019ll get this team through to the Old Firm showdown at Celtic Park on January 3 without so many key men.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll have to hope that the fresh recruits he\u2019s been promised by Kevin Thelwell and Andrew Cavenagh are lined up to arrive as soon as soon as the Hogmanay bells ring.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, he\u2019s going to have to depend on men who had already be written off as not up to standard, starting with Thursday\u2019s Europa League clash with Braga – where only a win will do if Gers are to salvage faint hopes of reaching the knock-out stages for a sixth time in seven seasons.<\/p>\n

The likes of Danilo and Nedim Bajrami were once so peripheral at Ibrox they found themselves in a different postcode.<\/p>\n

Now it looks like both men will be playing big parts having been name-checked by Rohl in the wake of the ragged win over David Martindale\u2019s Livi.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Manny Fernandez.<\/p>\n

There have been times this season when the big centre-back couldn\u2019t get a seat on the bench, never mind a game, for this rag-tag outfit even when they were conceding goals by the fistful.<\/p>\n

Martin couldn\u2019t trust him despite forking out \u00a32.5million to sign him from Peterborough but with Souttar and Cornelius now out, Rohl has no choice in the matter.<\/p>\n

In fairness, he certainly provides the Light Blues with a goal threat, as he demonstrated while making full use of his giant 6ft 4ins frame to head home the opening goal from James Tavernier\u2019s ninth-minute corner.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a rawness to his play and nonchalant vibe to his make-up that any decent striker will sniff out a mile off.<\/p>\n

The increasingly-erratic Nasser Djiga takes the lions\u2019 share of the blame for the lapse that allowed Tete Yengi to steak onto Stevie May\u2019s piercing pass and fire Livi level.<\/p>\n

\"MohamedMohamed Diomande wheels off to celebrate(Image: Kirk O’Rourke\/Rangers FC\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

But a more savvy defender would have spotted the danger and covered in for his partner.<\/p>\n

The nervous tension between Gers centre-back pairing was evident again as they failed to deal with a bog-standard ball into the box. Martindale could only laugh on the sidelines as referee Ross Hardie and his pals in the VAR booth decided Fernandez\u2019s arm had been in a natural position when he clearly handled another Tete shot.<\/p>\n

But he wasn\u2019t smiling at full-time as he branded the incident a \u201cstonewaller\u201d.<\/p>\n

With his side rooted to the bottom of the table, Martindale\u2019s mood wasn\u2019t lifted either by the sight of his striker – had not scored at all this season before his equaliser – missing a golden chance for a second as Jack Butland rescued Tavernier slip with a huge block.<\/p>\n

In the end, Rangers got the scrappiest of wins only when VAR finally did get involved to overturn an offside flag that had gone up when Mohamed Diomande pounced to tap home into an empty net after Bojan Miovski and Livi keeper Jerome Prior both failed to make contact with a Tavernier cross.<\/p>\n

But the Rangers fans might have to budget for some more anguish in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A squad that was already operating with a massive quality deficit has been hit by a string of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,129883,6254,596,8998,9001,9003,85,9002,146029],"class_list":["post-305474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-danny-rohl","tag-europa-league","tag-football","tag-rangers-fc","tag-rangers-fc-transfer-news","tag-scottish-premiership","tag-sports","tag-transfer-talk","tag-youssef-chermiti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}