Rangers fans frustrated by ‘bad habit’ after Middlesbrough | OneFootball

Rangers undoubtedly have engaged with a very, very bad habit in the past few seasons of a repetitive nature whereby managers pick frequently weak starting XIs and the team is behind going into the second half, usually 2-0 down. This is a long-standing issue that Rangers fans have had with the team, regardless of who the manager has been, that the manager would pick a substandard XI, only for the team to be deteriorating by around about the 60th minute, then a comeback to kick in, and either a late belated win or indeed just a draw.

Obviously the reason for this topic is the occurrence of this phenomenon once again today at Ibrox, in which visitors Middlesbrough soared to a 2-0 lead after yet more hapless defending by a Rangers side, picked by Russell Martin. Once again, late into the match, around about 50–60 minutes, the team finally woke up and started playing.

What we don’t get is this repeated insistence by every single Rangers manager in the last 10 years of not picking a strong team. We do not understand why this is, why managers repeatedly insist on picking substandard, subpar teams, leaving all the strong options either on the bench or in the stands, and only calling upon them when the team is already suffering.

There is no logic to this. There never has been. And the proponent of this in the first place was Steven Gerrard. He frequently started weak teams, he frequently started sides which were not Rangers’ best, and it was only into the second half again where Rangers would be making a comeback thanks to substitutions.

We can’t understand what the reasoning for this is. We can’t understand the logic, and we have been complaining about it at Ibrox for a very, very long time. Russell Martin is just doing the same thing. Philippe Clement also did the same thing. Gio more or less did the same thing. Beale did it as well. Managers repeating that same insanity of not starting a strong team.

Now obviously this was, of course, only a friendly. But it’s a repeating pattern no matter what the nature of the fixture is. Rangers just keep doing this. And if you do something over and over again and expect different outcomes, this is the definition of insanity.

Whether this will ever change, we have no idea. But the new manager is showing exactly the same thing as all previous ones did. So we’re not entirely certain that this is ever going to change.