The summer window at Ibrox has been a whirlwind of activity, a busy recruitment drive that has left the squad list looking impressive on paper. But as...
The summer window at Ibrox has been a whirlwind of activity, a busy recruitment drive that has left the squad list looking impressive on paper. But as the new season bites, a nagging question refuses to go away: how many central midfielders does a club actually need when the real issue might be the ammunition they provideLet's be honest, the Rangers dressing room is now a veritable forest of central midfield talent. Bodies have been brought in, contracts signed, and the depth chart looks healthy. But there is a difference between having options and having the right options. When you look at the current crop, you see plenty of graft and industry, men who will run through brick walls and break up play. But where is the magician Where is the man who can pick the lock of a parked bus, the one with the vision to slide a pass through the eye of a needle for the strikersThe reality is that having a team full of central midfielders is only half the battle. If those players are all cut from the same cloth, if they all prefer to sit deep and recycle possession rather than drive into the final third, then the forwards are left feeding on scraps. You can have a midfield three that dominates the ball for 70 per cent of the game, but if that dominance does not translate into clear cut chances, you are simply spinning your wheels. The Ibrox faithful know that winning the midfield battle is one thing; winning the football match is quite another.This is where the tactical flexibility must come in. The manager needs to find a blend, a midfield that offers both the steel to win the ball back and the silk to break the lines. It is a classic conundrum, the eternal struggle between continuity and chaos. The current squad appears to have plenty of the former, but a worrying shortage of the latter. The forwards are left waiting for a pass that never quite arrives, a through ball that gets played five yards too short.So the question is not whether Rangers have enough midfielders. They clearly do, numerically speaking. The question is whether they have the right ones to unlock stubborn defences and provide that consistent, clinical supply line. If the answer remains no, then all that recruitment could end up looking like a missed opportunity, a collection of square pegs in round holes. For a club of Rangers' stature, simply having numbers is not enough. You need the match winners, the players who can turn a tight game on its head with a single, incisive pass. Without that, the strikers will continue to starve.
