A lot of the Rangers support have gone sour on Mark Warburton as the club have struggled to be as competitive as perhaps some thought in the top flight this season. Personally I don't think we could have expected to be in much of a better position than the one we're in now, and we seem to be in a strong position to secure second place which, if we're honest, was always the goal, and if we can hold on to that I'll be happy. That aside, there are definitely valid concerns to be had about the team.
When MW come in last season, he made it very clear that the team was going to play in a 4-3-3, focus on controlling the football and play with a very attack minded approach. It's been apparent from the beginning that the team he's put together is not particularly well equipped to deal with counter attacks and our back line has never felt particularly secure, so our only real defence lies in controlling as much of the possession as possible.
Last season, this approach got the job done. The thing that allowed this system to succeed was the fact that the Rangers squad was generally better conditioned than those of the typical second tier club and by the end of games the opposition would be tired and start to make mistakes. Moving into the current campaign there's been an overall improvement in the quality of opposition and as you would expect, teams are far more difficult to break down.
Since returning to the top flight, Rangers have continued to enjoy the lion's share of possession in most games, but goals have been a very hard thing to find. Game after game this team dominate the play but struggle to make good on any chances that fall before them. Only once since October has the team won a game by more than a single goal. Clearly the team is lacking in the final third, and along with consistent defensive hiccups this has made it very hard to take home 3 points.
When I look, then, at the manager's activity in the January transfer market, I struggle to understand where he's coming from. The most apparent needs of the team as I see it are an out and out striker and a defensive rock, if you were going to pursue any mid-season additions to bolster the squad my expectation would be players in one of those areas. Instead, MW has made loan moves for Emerson Hyndman of Bournemouth and Jon Toral of Arsenal, both of whom play in attacking roles in central midfield.
Now I don't have any reason to doubt the quality of these lads, they've barely had a chance to pull the shirt on and I'd like to believe they'll do well for us, but this team is in need of permanent reinforcement, not temporary patchwork in the form of short term loan deals. When asked questions regarding this the manager has claimed that he has spent this transfer window building for the future, despite the fact he hasn't made a single permanent addition to the team.
I don't think that Mark Warburton is a bad manager. I'm very grateful for the work he's done for the club already, we were in a very bad place after the tenure of Ally McCoist and the failure to secure promotion from the Championship at first asking. I appreciate the fact that he's shown genuine interest in improving the Scottish game as a whole and believe him when he says he wants to be here for the long haul.
On the other hand, I'll admit to being frustrated with aspects of his managerial approach. He shows very little interest in exploring new tactical setups for the team, I think at one point he's said that "Plan B is to do Plan A better". He has a tendency to chalk any and all setbacks up to "not getting our rewards" which to me feels very dismissive of what appear to be real shortcomings in the squad. His transfer activity this season has been questionable and I feel that his over reliance on the loan market is doing little to improve the squad in the long term.
This wound up being way longer than I thought it was going to be, it was originally just a setup for pointing out how silly that "prepare for the future with loan signings" comment was, but I suppose I've been feeling somewhat conflicted about the current state of Rangers and it helped to be able to talk about it a bit.