The Light Blues secured their first win in the Europa League this season against Ludogorets
Rangers head coach Danny Rohl(Image: )
Danny Rohl admits his Rangers frontmen need to sharpen up – but backed new recruit Andreas Skov Olsen to provide the cutting edge his team are missing.
Gers had their faint Europa League qualification hopes ended despite finally picking up their first win of the league phase at home to Ludogorets. Mohamed Diomande slotted home the only goal from yet another set-piece routine – but the Light Blues blew a string of chances from open play to run up an even bigger scoreline.
Rohl admitted he was frustrated with his side’s decision making. But he’s looking forward to seeing if Skov Olsen can provide some clearer thinking in the final third when he makes his Gers bow against Dundee.
He said: “We created good opportunities in open play but we take the wrong decisions sometimes. Sometimes we want to score on our own, instead of making the extra pass to the team-mate, to give them the opportunity. This is a part we have to improve.
“But we should not forget, if you don’t create opportunities around the box, you will not have the set-pieces. Second half, we had three, four good opportunities to score.
“But generally, of course, we want to score more, it was a big topic this week, we spoke about the final third and which spaces we want to occupy. I saw some good moments where we made the right runs but not the right decisions.
“It’s this final calmness on the ball we have to improve but I think this is something that hopefully Skov helps us with very soon in this. He is a player who can play a good part, I saw this during the week in training.”
Rangers’ Youssef Chermiti has a shot at goal(Image: )
Gers knew they were effectively out of the qualification race having taken just one point from their first six games. But they are very much back in the fight for Premiership silver heading into Sunday’s clash with Steven Pressley’s team.
Their resurgence under Rohl has seen them now rack up seven straight wins and with title rivals Hearts and Celtic also squaring off at the same time this weekend, another triumph against the Dark Blues will see them either eat into the Jambios’ six-point lead or open up a gap on Martin O’Neill’s Hoops.
But Rohl insists he doesn’t care about what happens at Tynecastle.
He said: “I look just to ourselves, if we do our homework until the end of the season, we have a big chance.
“The teams around us can do what they want, we focus on our own and we take the wins, then we can smile at the end of the season.”
He added: “The first win in Europe is good for us as it keeps the momentum.
“Seven wins in a row is fantastic. Also from the last nine games, we have six clean sheets as well, that’s great.
“But I will also not close my eyes and say everything was nice, we know what we have to improve.
“It feels at the moment we can win, win, win, but it’s always hard work, and that was the big message after the game.
“If we think on Sunday we can go with 99 percent, then we have not the chance.
“We need again 100 percent during the next game. This is crucial.
“We have to demand of ourselves high, high standards, and this means we have to deliver every three days now 100 percent to take wins.”
Meanwhile, Rohl confirmed Kieran Dowell is close to joining Hull – and says more of his fringe men could be heading for the exit.
He said: “Kieran is nearly done with Hull. Maybe then some players will follow this way as well, because if the squad is too big then it’s not healthy for the group.
“We need 20-22 players that are really hungry and want to be part of our journey. For this, we will try to make the best decisions in the next couple of days.”