Giovanni van Bronckhorst has warned Rangers’ new recruits to shape up as he stood by the decision to snub his summer signings against Napoli. The Ibrox boss selected a starting XI for Wednesday’s cruel 3-0 Champions League loss to the Italians that included nine players whose were on the books during Steven Gerrard’s first season in charge way back in 2018/19.
The Dutchman has spent more than £10million tooling up for the new campaign. But of his seven new additions, Ridvan Yilmaz, Ben Davies, Malik Tillman, Rabbi Matondo and Antonio Colak were only judged good enough for the bench as John Souttar and Ben Davies missed out on the Group A showdown through injury.
And in what was hardly a ringing endorsement of the work carried out by his recruitment team over the summer, van Bronckhorst insisted he based his selection decisions for the clash with the Serie A leaders purely on current form. "I always pick the team who I think will win the game,” stressed the Ibrox gaffer. “I am not going to pick 11 players and say: ‘Okay, I’ll put three new signings in and four who have been here for 10 years’. It doesn’t work like that.
“I have my two eyes, I can see how their performances are, I can see how they train. I don’t look at new signings or players who have been here for a longer number of years, I just pick the best 11 for the game. I think the starting 11 played really well.”
Marquee signing Davies - a £4million buy from Liverpool - was back available after a month-long injury lay-off yet he was overlooked as van Bronckhorst once again chose to pair New York City loanee James Sands with Connor Goldson in defence. The former Anfield ace didn’t even make it off the bench when Sands was sent off midway through the second half, with the Rangers boss instead opting to throw on youngster Leon King as he rejigged his side.
But van Bronckhorst offered a tetchy reply when he was quizzed on why he’d left the 27-year-old in his tracksuit. "Why do I have to talk about Ben Davies?” he snarked. “He has been injured, he is just back in training. I put players in who I think will be ready to play. That is why I put Leon in first. He defends really well, he defended really well in the second-half against Ajax. That is why I put him in and why Ben didn’t start.”
Van Bronckhorst was happier to talk up the performances of Allan McGregor and Alfredo Morelos as both returned to his starting line-up. Veteran stopper McGregor has been replaced as No.1 by Jon McLaughlin this season but took advantage of an injury suffered by his glove rival to show he’s not done yet, pulling off an incredible double stop against Piotr Zieliński’s re-taken spot-kick.
It wasn’t enough to prevent his side slumping to their third straight defeat as Napoli sauntered to a win that was harsh on the Ibrox men. But there were at least signs of energy and passion that had been missing in the dreadful drubbings dished out by Celtic and Ajax.
And with a leaner Morelos back involved after his fall-out with his boss, Rangers also had a decent focal point in attack for the first time this season. Praising the duo, van Bronckhorst said: “At the first two penalties Allan was excellent and before that he had already had some saves. We know how Allan will play. Of course it is a disappointment for him not to start the season, but I have told him to be ready when we need him. He is ready to play as he showed.
It has been a very positive week for Alfredo too. Clearly you can see he is working hard. I thought the first start for him would be after a couple of weeks. But he has done well, he was very dangerous, he could have scored in the first minute. We know what he will bring to the team. In the Napoli game we needed him to be the target man and hold the ball up.
“In the first-half he played really well and should have got some free-kicks in favour of him with the physical battles he had to take with the defenders. He is clearly on another level to what he was a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago. We still have Antonio who is performing well, especially up front. In the No.9 position I think we have two players who can give me what I want.”
READ NEXT
