By Sheryl Ritchie
In the iconic setting of Estadio San Mamés, Rangers were left wrestling with more than just the occasion. There were moments that might have changed everything, tactical gambles that left fans bemused and that didn’t pay off and above all, it was a night where Rangers — and Barry Ferguson — were left wondering what could have been.
Rangers went into the game on a wave of optimism, In his pre-match press conference Barry Ferguson shared his delight at the squad options available to him and fans in their thousands made the journey to Bilbao in the knowledge Rangers usually save their best for a Thursday night.
This wasn’t a collapse. There were spells, particularly in the first twenty five minutes and towards the end of the second half where Rangers looked like a side who could cause problems. We’ve seen time and again that to progress in the latter stages of major competitions a certain amount of luck is required, key moments to go your way, decisions to be fair and you need your big calls — whether substitutions or tactical changes — to land. For Rangers, none of those things happened. Instead, this was a performance that left fans angry at dubious refereeing calls and a manager quietly facing what he described as self-reflection as to where he and the club go next.
Eyebrows were raised when after defeat at Ibrox, Jose Mourinho insinuated, after the tie against Roma, that there may be an ulterior motive behind Athletic Club’s progression in the tournament. It took all of sixteen minutes and what looked to be a stone wall penalty after a clear pull on Cyriel Dessers, to find it hard to disagree with him. Vivian’s pull in the box on Dessers, left him needing a change of shirt and also earned Dessers a booking for his protests however there was no VAR intervention and the game continued. The manager was unable to hide his frustration at the decision not to award a penalty and subsequent red card for the pull on Dessers and then a second for a hand ball in the second half, citing both decisions as key in “changing the dynamic of the game.” Ferguson also expressed his bemusement at Dessers’ yellow card when changing his shirt and cited this as his part of the reason he didn’t ask approach referee Irfan Peljto for an explanation around the penalty decisions.
Rangers came to rue the decision further when Athletic Club were awarded a penalty after John Souttar made a reckless challenge in the dying minutes of the first half. Whilst Liam Kelly came to Rangers’ rescue in the first leg last week, he was unable to stop Oihan Sancet’s shot and the home side went in one nil up at the break. When questioned on whether he felt his team failed to perform on the night or whether he would put the performance simply down to a defeat to a stronger team, Ferguson stated he felt it was a case of both and that whilst the team worked hard in parts of the game, they were missing “that bit of quality in the middle third of the park.”
Whilst the role of the officials in the defeat is difficult to dispute, the manager’s substitutions and tactical tweaks struggled to have the desired impact on the game. An injury midway through the first half to Ridvan Yilmaz meant a change of formation and game plan with Ferguson bringing on Connor Barron into midfield and moving Mohamed Diomande into the left back role, a decision that had many scratching their heads. The substitution appeared to suck the life out of Rangers, who had up until then had managed to contain Athletic Club. Removing Diomande from the midfield led to the middle of the park being completely overrun.
When pressed on the effectiveness of his tactical decisions and changes during the game afterwards, Ferguson admitted the players struggled to adjust saying “You can’t plan for injuries, but you’ve got to try and come up with something. We’ve done it before and it’s worked — tonight, it didn’t. That’s on me.” Ferguson wasn’t hiding from it. “I’m not scared to make changes,” he said. “In the past, they’ve helped us win games. Tonight, they didn’t. I’ll take that.” The manager also revealed that he’d shared his disappointment with his players at full time that “The work rate was there but the quality wasn’t, “ and that “We’ll go away, reflect, and come back in on Monday looking to finish the season strong.”
In terms of his own future Barry Ferguson was honest after the match “If it’s not me, I’ll go back to what I was doing,” making reference to the club ambassador role he held before taking on the interim manager role. Ferguson spoke about the need to get Rangers back to “consistently challenging for trophies,” about the need for clarity around who will be at the helm and his own pride in what he and his backroom team have achieved, “I’ve had doubters, that’s fine. I just want to make these three months something to remember.” To his credit, he’s worked incredibly hard to bring stability, re-energised a group that was flat and has shown that whilst many of his players have fallen short, his desire and commitment to “get this club back to where it should be,” should never be in doubt.
