Starting vs Ajax today! Our boy is in the freaking CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
James Sands [Midfielder] [HG]
- Thread starter Falastur
- Start date
Time to take a 90 (plus stoppage time) minute work break.
I luckily have a work meeting for two hours now, so I can keep it on silent and watch. yay
1st goal, he could have defended better and attacked the ball, but i think this is a failure of zonal marking. the other CBs/rangers players didn't go for the ball either. own goal is just unlucky. 3rd goal he wasn't involved. doesn't seem like rangers are playing very well as a team either (not watching, just from twitter reactions)
The OG was unlucky and came shortly after he had made a very impressive block and recovery off a similar situation.
With that said, all the ‘Gers fans were crapping on Goldson on the corner and blaming zonal marking but Jimmy HAS to pick up Alvarez there. He not defending his space (which is how zonal is supposed to work). He was rooted to the ground and didn’t see Alvarez crashing. Or he could have attacked the ball. He did neither. IMHO that was the worse infraction.
And with all that said, the Rangers team D was horrible and arguable Jimmy was the only making challenges and tackles.
this is the problem with zonal marking. it's not always clear who's space it is. seems like sands thought the 2-3 rangers players who were there were going to attack the ball and head it away. so he didn't move. maybe he should have, but that's the rub with zonal marking. any indecision from players creates a huge opening and allows an open header. if sands attacks the ball and it goes over his head anyway, is he at fault again? i've always disliked zonal marking on corners and set pieces. not only do you get mismatches with height/physical size, but you get these moments of indecision.
The "own goal" was just a deflection - not charged against Sands. He was trying for a block, and the deflection did cause a savable ball to get by the keeper. It happens.
yea. i'm sure GB watched this game as well. CCV didn't show very well vs real madrid either.
I think Rangers (and Celtic) fans have an inflated idea as to how good they really are compared to the rest of Europe
i think rangers felt they can hang with big boys, i mean they were a finalist in the europa league. even though thats no true measuring stick. i mean frankfurt got destroyed at home....by sporting
Fifth best team in Germany vs second/first best team in Portugal. No shocker there at all! The fact that countries get 4 teams into the CL is still crazy to me. And Germany this year has FIVE. No way the worst of those can even come close to comparing against champions in other leagues.
