Rangers’ lead in the Scottish Premiership might be slipping away after a dynamic yet goalless draw with Hibernian during the week. The team couldn’t take advantage of its opportunities and ended up with 35 points, dropping to the second place in place of Celtic, who won their game against Motherwell.
After beating Celtic last week, Hibernian boss, Neil Lennon made no changes in the squad and Hibs managed to hold onto the result against Gers despite the regularly exposed defensive line. There were a couple of positional changes which didn’t help much also.
The failure to score goals and convert pressure into points is becoming more frequent for Rangers as this is also Steven Gerrard’s biggest frustration lately. Alfredo Morelos replaced Kyle Lafferty on the top of the attack after a two-game suspension but unfortunately he couldn’t turn his shots into goals as only three out of his seven were on target.
There was no reminder of the last season’s breathtaking 5-5 draw between the teams as this time the lack of decisive finishing under pressure resulted in a goalless display.
But why did Rangers struggle in front of the goal and how did Hibs hold on to this result?
Morelos’ low accuracy performance
Alfredo Morelos has scored nine goals for Rangers this term which is a pretty satisfying stat. But if you look into his overall game, you would notice that his contribution to the other areas and his accuracy in that is quite low.
Against Hibernian, he managed to shoot seven times with only three of them being on target. And that is the case in most of the games he took part in. His shot accuracy percentage on average per 90 minutes is only 37,2%. As it happened this week, he experiences difficulties once he is put under pressure. The Colombian is good at creating opportunities but he needs to put some more work in the final stages. The proof of his problems under pressure is the fact that he won less than half of his duels and lost possession of the ball 10 times against Hibs. Although he escaped some of them gracefully with 7/7 successful dribbles.
Borna Barisic charged down the left and spotted Morelos, who had drifted slightly to that side from his central berth. Barisic’s ball was perfect to run into the Colombian’s path, who checked inside Lewis Stevenson before bringing out a fine save from Bogdan to his right.
Rangers’ counter-attack efforts and pressing
Hibs defensive line was constantly pressured with Morelos expectedly being the most active player in the final third. His shots on target all came in a five minute period of time as his good positioning during corner kicks was crucial. The team sent 14 shots towards Adam Bogdan (who came in as a sub in the 14th minute) with eight of them being on target. They kept the goalkeeper busy but after a few brilliant saves, he managed to keep a clean sheet.
