Tactics from the Terrace

Craig Cairns begins this new feature with a look at Niko Kranjcar’s league debut for Rangers and the issues surrounding Ross County’s approach to this season.

How to deal with Niko Kranjcar

Stick a player on him. Man-mark him to buggery. Some greeted the arrival of the obviously talented yet mercurial midfielder with enthusiasm, some had their suspicions after he arrived from the second tier of US soccer.

Saturday’s performance vindicated the latter somewhat. The Accies midfield allowed Joey Barton to drop between his centre-backs, putting a body each on Kranjcar and Andy Halliday. The result was they were unable to find space to affect the match – after the initial five minute period where Mark Warburton’s side looked as if they were going to steamroll the opposition.

Then, approximately 12 seconds after Kranjcar left the field, his replacement Harry Forrester found space, collected the ball and played a sublime outside of the boot pass to Martyn Waghorn. This created the equaliser in what was one of Rangers’ first clear-cut chances of the match.

The other, related issue was the space between the Rangers defence and midfield. As already noted, Barton dropped to collect the ball deep and in the early stages was able to spray a variety of mid-to-long-range passes to teammates. However, he was rarely able to link effectively with his other central midfielders due to the large gap between them. Kranjcar and Halliday seemed to take up advanced roles when Rangers were in possession and when they did drop deep to receive the ball their only option was to play it backwards instantly, such was the effectiveness of Hamilton’s man-marking and pressing.

Granted, it is still early days but it leads to questions about Warburton’s signing policy in the close season. Are Barton and Kranjcar the solution to challenging Celtic? On Saturday’s performance, no. Can they improve? Yes, but perhaps Warburton needs to find an alternative to “doing Plan A better” in order to accommodate them. Moreover, adding Clint Hill to an exposed back two doesn’t seem to be the solution either on Saturday’s evidence. The experienced centre-half looked every bit of his near-38 years for Ali Crawford’s superb goal, taking an age to push up while raising an arm to claim for God-knows-what.

Does McIntyre need to rethink his back three?

Jim McIntyre sprung a surprise in last season’s League Cup final by fielding a back three. It was, to my knowledge, the first time he had done so as Ross County manager. It wasn’t strictly a back three, though. Marcus Fraser started on the right but seemed to go between right-back and centre-back. Ahead of him, Michael Gardyne started as a wingback but, more often than not, drifted towards his natural role as a winger. On the other side, the speedy Richard Foster pushed high up the pitch when required but was sure to track the advancements of Hibernian right-back David Gray. It allowed County to play three central midfielders while retaining a strike partnership.

It seems that McIntyre has now adopted three central defenders as his favoured set-up. The addition of Jay McEveley has led the County boss to start the season in a strict, yet slow, back three – even though McEveley and Paul Quinn have featured as full-backs in the past. This approach led to a poor third-place finish in their League Cup group behind League One side Alloa and Gary Locke’s Raith Rovers.

The real problem seems to be further ahead, though. With four strikers, all with decent goal-scoring records to chose from, McIntyre decided to field three of them in the opening league defeat to Dundee. Liam Boyce took up the number 10 role behind Alex Schalk and Brian Graham in a 3-4-1-2 formation. On paper, this suggests a triangle of three central midfielders, though Boyce’s predatory instincts means he is more likely to gravitate towards the opposition penalty area than drop back to aid his midfield. With Gardyne again playing as a wingback, this attacking line-up inevitably left County exposed and, ironically, it was their substitute striker Craig Curran that eventually grabbed their consolation goal.

And it is the centre of midfield where perhaps the biggest problem lies. For much of his tenure, McIntyre has been able to play with two central midfielders to great effect. One of these was Jackson Irvine, whose energy, industry and ingenuity allowed them to dominate other two-man midfields and not be overrun by a three-man midfield. His departure and lack of a like-for-like replacement means that McIntyre will have to rethink how he sets up his midfield in future.