Rangers4 - Dundee0
A SPRING clean works wonders. Rangers finished their dusting-up of Dundee with six Scots. More importantly for a team lacking polish, they finished four goals to the good on league duty for the first time since September.
It freshened the hitherto stale air around Ibrox. The club's supporters have had little to cheer this season so perhaps the SPL should show leniency towards the in-house disc jockey who thrice had to prompt the punters into song, flouting league regulations in the process.
They needed no invitation by the time Steven Thompson rasped No.4 past his former Tayside rivals. The unbridled and unchoreographed celebrations in which the striker indulged confirmed that, while silverware is no longer an attainable ambition this season, personal pride can be salvaged.
The 26-year-old reaped his reward for a raw and rumbustious display. Subtlety is not a strong point of the Scotland internationalist but that can be refreshing.
''If I was their age, I would be quite happy with the way things have gone,'' he said of the ramshackle season which has offered youngsters hitherto unavailable first-team opportunities. ''It means they will get a chance when they otherwise would not have, and I think there will be more young players coming in before the end of the season.''
Alan Hutton earned a first-team recall after weeks of canvassing from Andy Watson. The assistant was not around to watch the full back work his way to a man-of-the-match award but the performance vindicated his confidence. The teenager's previous experience was character building. Puffed out against Partick Thistle at Firhill last season, he was spared at the interval.
This time he lasted the distance and provided the reliability in a right-back McLeish has craved. Diligent in defence, pretty in possession, Hutton also displayed a healthy appetite for attack, an outlet which proved a godsend when Ronald de Boer's enforced removal after 25 minutes required tactical tinkering to accommodate Michael Mols.
Where Maurice Ross has been known to infuriate with his erratic style, Hutton chose to illuminate. The accuracy of his crosses met with the approval of the strikers, Thompson especially, and the arcing style proved problematic for Dundee's defence throughout.
Losing a goal in controversial circumstances minutes before half-time deflated Dundee, and Frank de Boer's free-kick shortly after the break sapped their will. Rangers gradually rediscovered their verve and, after a period of trial and error, McLeish cultivated a formation that clicked. Worringly, Craig Moore failed to reappear after the interval, the manager revealing afterwards that ''he felt his knee was about to give way.'' The Australian is now a major doubt for next week's Old Firm derby, yet Zurab Khizanishvili is a more than adequate replacement.
He is a misfit in midfield, his station at the start, but he enjoyed a commanding second half beside Frank de Boer. If, as is expected, McLeish opts for a
3-5-2 formation next season, there are few better candidates for the sweeping role than the graceful Georgian.
This was a reinvigorating match for Rangers. So much so, in fact, that Bob Malcolm came in from the cold and strutted around centre midfield for 45 minutes, spraying passes and pinching possession to general astonishment. Chris Burke played the court jester for 23 minutes, scampering down the left flank at will and earning raucous approval for his box of tricks. He was genuinely hacked-off at hearing the final whistle, booting the ball away in disgust as the referee denied him one last surge.
He was not the only one to show his contempt for Alan Freeland. Jim Duffy was apoplectic when he overruled linesman James Bee and stirred up a hornet's nest. His flag was raised long before Peter Lovenkrands bundled the ball into the net, but Freeland had decided that a Dundee deflection from Stephen Hughes' cross was sufficient to play Moore onside.
Frank de Boer's free-kick within two minutes of the restart compounded their misery. It was a thing of beauty, unlike Ronald's nose after Tommy Hutchison had thumped him. Gavin Rae showed little sympathy for his former employers, teeing himself up and blasting beyond Julian Speroni from the edge of the penalty box. Thompson completed the scoring, with Hutton's cross dummied by Mols and thudded in by the target man.
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