Rangers 2 River Plate 3
The first of the glamour ties Stateside proved a fairly entertaining experience, as far as pre-season friendlies go. It certainly had more bite than the preceeding Metro Stars v Chicago Fire game.
Rangers started with a 4-3-3 formation. Klos in goal, back four of Ricksen Moore, Amoruso and Numan. The midfield had Ferguson and Arteta in the middle with Latapy sitting just in front of them. De Boer played wide on the right, Arveladze on the left and Mols through the centre.
The game started fairly blandly until the fifth minute when Numan worked well and released Mols on the left hand side. He in turn put in an excellent low cross only for De Boer to steer the ball wide from six yards.
River Plate (RP) began to put the foot on the ball and control it more. Rangers defended fairly stoutly with a couple of good clearing headers by Moore and Amoruso. However in the 18th minute RP broke down the right and sent in a cross only for Ricksen to be caught wrong side and ball watching which made a fairly easy finish. At this point I wondered if any Scottish journalists were here. Looking behind the goal I saw some people celebrating and assumed yes, however on closer inspection it was some mhankies with their green and grey hoops. Earlier on they must've been onto the copyright police as Metro Stars had performed a pre-match huddle. They would've been pushed over the edge further when the ref of that game patted a player's behind.
One minute later the referee booked Amoruso for an innocuos challenge. Considering it was a friendly the ref seemed overly keen on dishing out cards.
Rangers continued to work reasonably hard and in the 26th minute De Boer received the ball in right midfield and whipped in an excellent cross only or Mols to bullet his header wide. Minutes later Latapy was booked for an "over-the-top" tackle.
Rangers slack passing was highlighted in the 38th minute when Moore left his pass back woefully short resulting in a good save from Klos and then Moore clearing the rebounded shot off the line with his head.
Numan was playing well for Rangers and seemed keen to impress. He intercepted a pass five minutes prior to HT and released Arveladze wide on the left only for him to put in a poor cross. The final action of this half saw Rangers unlucky not to score. Arteta put in a cross from the right and the ball broke to Numan who found Arveladze and he squared to Latapy.
Latapy was very unlucky to see his delicate little chip come back off the upright. Arveladze missed the rebound from six yards. Rangers returned unchanged for the second half. The lethargy that had spread through the defence continued when Amoruso was dispossessed wide on the left and the subsequent cross again highlighted Ricksen for being positionally unaware and ball watching and his man nipping into score. It is hard to see Rangers having a solid defensive unit with Ricksen in there.
After 57 minutes Muscatt replaced the mainly ineffectual Latapy. Rangers changed to a 4-4-2 with Ricksen in midfield and Ricksen going into the midfield. Rangers lack of killer instinct was highlighted two minutes later when Mols squared to Arveladze only for him to miss the ball completely. In the 61st minute Ricksen went some way to redeeming himself by running onto a pass wide on the right and crossing it low to the back post for
Arveladze to knock it into the empty net. 67th minute Mols came off for Flo. Ferguson was booked a few minutes later in what appeared a harsh decision. In the 78th minute Arteta was caught with a cynical challenge 30 yards from the RP goal. Amoruso stepped up to lash the ball home direct from the free kick. The ball was struck viciously both swerving and dipping.
Never let it be said that Rangers cannot grasp defeat from a draw.
Straight from kick off RP launched a long ball and Amoruso was caught sleeping as his man ran in on his blind side to stroke the ball passed a helpless Klos. The final major incident of the match was Numan being sent off for a nasty tackle from the back. There can be no complaints about the decision. Ross replaced Ricksen and slotted in at left back.
Overall it was an enjoyable match with both positives and negatives. I don't believe that a lot can be garnered from pre-season frienlies but the conclusions drawn from this match are as follows. On the up-side Arteta seems a very neat player with good balance and Muscatt performed fairly well. The side should be more solid with these additions. On the down side Rangers will not win the league if the defence is not tightened up and a killer instinct is applied in front of goal.
SoaW