Rangers fc fans demand player sold immediately after a dreadful performance against Falkirk

Danny Rohl’s Rangers rollercoaster is already making fans feel sick as flops can’t escape ‘old habits’
A lacklustre goalless draw with Falkirk saw the boo boys emerge at Ibrox once again

Normally a rollercoaster ride is full of exhilaration and excitement. But the one Danny Rohl claims his Rangers side are currently on is only making fans feel sick.

The German boss was trying to explain his team’s ropey performances in the Premiership this season. It’s certainly been topsy-turvy, with more downward dips than hair-raising highs.

After somehow steering his side to four league wins on the spin, the goalless draw against Falkirk left punters feeling queasy again. And Rohl is adamant that if he’s going to get them on the straight and narrow again, this is a no-thrill ride they need to get off.

Rangers should have gone into the game against the Bairns with confidence after closing the gap in the table to Hearts and Celtic in recent weeks. Instead, they looked scared to play against John McGlynn’s plucky Premiership newcomers.

Gers struggled to create any clear-cut chances and rarely looked like they’d break the deadlock. More worrying for Rohl, though, was the lack of urgency and intensity his side showed throughout the 90 minutes. You wouldn’t have known they had an opportunity to get themselves back into a title race, despite a woeful start to the campaign.

They were devoid of desire, hunger and appetite for the challenge – and Falkirk were worthy of their point. Afterwards, Rohl tried to get his head around it but he was probably still in a daze.

This group of players – who were expensively assembled in the summer – are failing to deliver. And when they offer a glimmer of promise for a few weeks, they invariably let managers down.

Rohl is now finding that out and when quizzed on the absence of intensity in their play and if it was a concern, he said: “Yeah, of course. When you see the result, the position (in the table), what could we do today – then you think: ‘Come on, guys, go out and bring things on the pitch’.

spoke at half-time a little bit about this. I said: ‘Guys, in some moments, I missed the conviction’. Even with our pressing, you feel sometimes they think too much about what happens behind them.

“But if you do it and don’t press at 100 percent intensity, then you give the opponent a little bit more. This is again why it’s a little bit like the rollercoaster, the ups and downs in our game. You feel sometimes we drop back into old habits. This is again what we have to remove.”

Rohl admits that some of his players look too nervous to perform to their best at Ibrox. Certainly, his attacking players look devoid of confidence and belief, especially with an expectant, demanding crowd behind them.

But it’s Rohl’s job to rid them of that fear and get them expressing themselves again. On the question of nervousness, he said: “Yeah, I get that feeling at the moment from when I talk to my players, see how they act in situations, how they react in situations.

“This is what we have to improve on the pitch, even off the pitch, in conversations. If we can do it, we can bring more out of some players.

“With some players you see at the moment, it’s not the easiest thing to play here. I’m trying to bring them into positions to help them on the pitch and I think this is a bigger picture.

It must be about decision-making, how we can accelerate the game. That is exactly the part we have to believe in.

“In terms of confidence, it should normally be the case after four wins in the league. But there’s disappointment in the result today, of course.

When you play at home, you want to win these games. There are reasons why we couldn’t accelerate our game, in some good areas.

“Our decision-making, finding the next free man, finding the right touch. We were not right today. I think even in the transition moments when I look back there was a minimum of four or five situations where you have the feeling: ‘Oh, now we can really hurt them’.

And then we turn back or we don’t find the right teammate. Then it slows down the game and you cannot create much on the front foot with power to score. And then you feel it’s tough to win.”

That issue of turning back is just one of the things that is frustrating the life out of Rangers’ supporters. When players are being negative in a home game against Falkirk, it’s a major worry.

Rohl is aware of it but accepts his players’ decision making on the pitch isn’t where it should be. He said: “It’s about how you scan the picture on the pitch.

“If you have an idea of where you want to go before receiving the ball, you can accelerate the game. If you receive it then look, it’s too slow because the opponent puts effort in to close the gaps.

“Then it’s difficult to break the next line. You saw today, we had some good moments when you were excited but in the next moment – the decision – again you have to scan before receiving the ball.

“Today, if you look at the Falkirk right-back’s (Keenan Adams) positioning, we [often] missed the moment to attack exactly this space, to switch the game in this direction.

“We show the players but on the pitch, the decision-making is at the moment not the highest level. This is what we have to do as a group.”