Rangers 3 - 1 Dundee Utd: United picked off by Nikica Jelavic

By Tom English, at Ibrox
Published on Sunday 6 November 2011 00:45

THIS was Remembrance Day for Rangers, an afternoon when the club swung open its arms to the soldiers and the sailors and paraded them across Ibrox, but if the reception afforded the uniformed brigades will live long in their own personal memory, you couldn’t say the same about the game they watched.

It was average stuff from Rangers for the most part, but it was a win, three more points towards the cause, further ballast to the belief that strong foundations are being built here for a fourth successive title.

United gave a reasonable account of themselves but their own desperate inadequacies at the back made Rangers’ life easier than it might have been, all three of the home team’s goals being down to confusion of different sorts in the visitors’ defence. Nikica Jelavic scored from a free header then a penalty and the third was an own goal courtesy of Garry Kenneth. In the last minutes, Rangers had Gregg Wylde sent off for kicking out at Willo Flood, a spat that added a bit of thunder to a day that mostly lacked it.

This was the first match day in the life of Rangers post-Steven Naismith, and if it’s obvious that the stricken midfielder is going to be an enormous loss for the rest of the season they can at least take comfort from the fact that they managed to score three goals and gain three points without him. Ally McCoist was able to shake up his selection just a little with Kyle Bartley, only seen in blue once this season, up in Inverness away back in August, coming into the centre of midfield, and Matt McKay, the rarely-spotted Australian making only his second appearance for his new club and his first start. It was his first time playing at Ibrox also. He set up Rangers’ first goal, ran about a bit and then came off. It’s hard to say yet whether McKay is going to cut it here or not, but at least he’s up and running now.

United might have energised this game very early on had Jon Daly not wasted a fine chance from a Johnny Russell cross after just six minutes, scooping his shot over Allan McGregor’s crossbar when not realising he had as much time as he had.

There is a resilience about Rangers, though. And when Jelavic is about, there is also a menace that defences in this league cannot contain for very long. The Croatian had a sticky beginning to his season, but he’s been looking more like himself of late. It helps, of course, when the defence he is up against loses him in the box as United did when McKay sent over his cross. Leaving Jelavic on his own close to your six-yard area is just asking to be punished. And, sure enough, punish United he did with a precise header past the flailing arms of Dusan Pernis. That was his eighth goal in 14 SPL games. His ninth would follow before the day was done.

It’s just as well they got the lead when they did, because Rangers soon retreated into their shells and a general air of apathy came over them. All very odd and all very inviting for United, who set about trying to get themselves an equaliser and had a couple of decent moments along the way. A Paul Dixon cross and a Dorin Goian slip put McGregor under some pressure to clear his line, which he did well, and just before the break another Dixon cross might have presented a great chance to Daly had Sasa Papac negated the danger.

Dixon was causing some bother down his flank but Rangers were being troubled somewhat through the middle also. Bartley looked like a guy who hadn’t played in two and a half months. At least he had an excuse. Round about him he had team-mates whose passing was largely out of sync, but that doesn’t matter when your opponents have a death wish, as United obviously did given the nature of Rangers’ second goal, a penalty gifted to them by the previously impressive Dixon.

It was just the past hour-mark and the home crowd were showing the first strains of impatience with their team when Wylde – who’d replaced the injured Lee Wallace in the first half – was meandering over on the right-hand side of United’s box, going nowhere, it seemed. Dixon then piled into him, brought him down as his life depended on him making the tackle. Easy call for Brian Winter, the referee. And an easy conversion by Jelavic, who stuck it away to Pernis’s right as the goalkeeper was flinging himself to his left.

United, to their credit, made a game of it, if only until their next defensive calamity. Daly’s header in the 74th minute was cushioned beyond McGregor after the Irishman beat Carlos Bocanegra to Keith Watson’s cross to the back post, but it was wiped out when Steven Whittaker galloped down the right and saw his cross go in off the hapless Kenneth under huge pressure from Jelavic, who, no doubt, tried to claim the goal as his own.

Pressure back on Celtic, then. The gap between the Glasgow giants stands, for the moment, at an eye-watering 15 points.

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