ONE 4-0 defeat is bad enough without another arriving soon after.
Rangers contrived to put in a worse performance during last night’s Champions League defeat than the weekend when Celtic inflicted another Old Firm humiliation. There is no shame in suffering a loss at the hands of quality European opposition, of which Ajax must be regarded, but it was the nature of yesterday’s performance that will have irritated supporters even more than the scoreline.
Until two late Ryan Kent chances with the game already decided, the visitors had recorded an xG of 0.10. StatsBomb predict that on the basis of opportunities created, Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side would win the game 0 times out of 100 and only earn a draw on five occasions.
For context, in every Champions League tie over Tuesday and Wednesday, only Marseille recorded a lower xG at 0.20, and they played a half of football with 10 men against Antonio Conte’s Tottenham.
There was nothing to hold onto at the Johan Cruyff Arena. Like Saturday, Rangers lacked an attacker to get them up the pitch and stem the tide or necessary defensive application to preserve a slender lead. Until two late Kent chances in injury time, only a James Sands header and 30-yard Antonio Colak effort showed on the shot map.
Ajax’s 2.41xG doesn’t fully tell of the constant danger they posed in the opposition half and would surely have been higher if the away side hadn’t played a game of damage limitation after the break.
It’s the disparity in probability, given Ajax would win the game based on chances 95 times out of 100, that tells of the gulf on show.
Rangers made just 50 successful passes that ended in the opposition half, held 26 percent of the ball and attempted 295 passes to their hosts’ 838. Calvin Bassey made 144 passes on his own, almost half the number Rangers managed as a team.
Again, in the entire tournament, only Viktoria Plzen attempted a lower number of passes on matchday one at 258, and they were playing away at Barcelona.
All of these stats hold little value if a result is achieved. Many counterattacking victories have succeeded in Europe before. This team have had to play superior opponents and remain compact without the ball. The energy, determination and discipline required to carry out such a game plan was entirely lacking in Amsterdam and based on the team van Bronckhorst selected, that surely wasn’t the intention. If the plan was to earn a point, a more conservative 11 would’ve been selected.
In possession during the first-half, John Lundstram moved between the centre-backs to try and catalyse spells of possession, Colak dropped unsuccessfully to try and act as a focal point while Kent and Scott Wright failed to offer a transitional threat.
After half-time, Leon King, Rabbi Matondo and Ryan Jack were introduced as the team sat in shape to keep the score down.
The visitor's successful open play passes shown below illustrates no possession in the final third and an absence of any incisive, forward passing.
What went wrong tactically in the first 45? Against the ball, Rangers had tried to press in a 4-1-4-1 having done so successfully in Eindhoven a matter of weeks ago. And while Van Bronckhorst has regularly got one over opposition managers in Europe before, Alfred Schreuder managed to exploit his approach this time around.
Ajax’s pass network from the entire game depicts Mohammed Kudus and Steven Berghuis playing in the space ahead of the Rangers defence, with Dusan Tadic and Steven Bergwijn wide.
Regularly, the hosts provoked the press, played through it and found a player dropping into midfield, normally Kudus.
Connor Goldson and James Sands had seemingly been instructed to not track Kudus man-for-man as has so often been the case in recent months. As a result, the young forward constantly got on the ball unopposed just in front of the defence.
It was Kudus who played in Berghuis for the second goal after turning unmarked from his false No.9 position.
Minutes later he popped up on the left-hand side, turned James Tavernier and found the far corner.
"We went too quick with our opponents who dragged them away to make space," van Bronckhorst said post-match in response to the goals conceded.
"In those moments we should have stayed more in our zones which we didn't do well."
BT Sport claimed the hosts ran 6km more than their opponents. There are two sides of context to this particular number. On one hand, Rangers spent most of the game shuttling across trying to defend space and particularly after the break, rarely broke from their defensive block. Contrastingly, they only had 26 percent of the possession and attempted over 500 fewer passes.
On pressures alone, Rangers made 150 to Ajax’s 106, but only regained the ball 14 times to their hosts’ 27 successful attempts.
With and without the ball, they fell so far short of European standards that previous success has set.
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