Mols brings a touch of class to dreary show

RANGERS 1 ST JOHNSTONE 0

THE sight of thousands of Rangers fans filing out of the ground well before the end, even though their side had not fully sealed the three points, said it all.

Despite the encouragement of a first minute goal for the returning Michael Mols, the home side were unable to finish off a St Johnstone side missing no fewer than nine players through injury or suspension. In the circumstances, even Audley Harrison might have done better.

A third win in a row may have pleased Alex McLeish, but the complacency of his side of under-achievers does not auger well. The faults which have crept in over the last season and a half were all too evident as the crowd voted with their feet, still unconvinced their side is on the right track.

"We got three points," said McLeish, but anything said thereafter was superfluous. Mols' return is a major plus point, and his fellow Dutchman Ronald de Boer played well, but all the new manager's talking will have to be done on the training ground.

Despite three bad misses before he was substituted in the second half, Mols had a pleasing return to the Rangers side. "The knee is no problem any more," he reported. "I need more games and hopefully I can get back to my old form again."

It was a dramatic return to the game. Mols had looked menacing inside the St Johnstone penalty area within seconds of the start, and after just a few more he put his side ahead to the joy of the home crowd.

A sweet move down the right saw De Boer send a low cross into the box, and there was no sign of striking rustiness as Mols, who had lined up in the middle between Claudio Caniggia and Shota Arveladze, met it first time and dispatched the ball crisply into the corner of the goal past Kevin Cuthbert. It was his first goal for the side since scoring against Dundee on August 26.

Cue much celebration in the Ibrox stands. Meanwhile, as the unfortunate Cuthbert bent down into the rigging to get his first touch of the ball there was much apprehension for the visitors. An early goal for the home side in these mis-matches is generally the point of no return, but on this occasion it proved to be so for the specatators as well.

Billy Stark recognised his side were being over-run in midfield, and the manager quickly ordered Rachid Djebaili to drop back from his role up front alongside Willie Falconer to form a five man clutter in midfield.

Strangely, although Rangers were enjoying almost all the possession, there had been two missed early opportunities in front of goal for both the St Johnstone starting front men. First Djebaili failed to get a boot on Falconer's inviting low cross, and then Falconer himself hit the ball weakly into the arms of Stefan Klos from a similar position.

Despite creating these chances the visitors, with several changes to their side, understandably lacked cohesion. Mols, especially, and Arveladze were causing problems whenever they ran at the St Johnstone defence, but Caniggia on the right was having a poor game.

Apart from having to deal with a few corners, Cuthbert was surprisingly under-employed - although he showed his potential midway through the half when he dived low to tip a Bert Konterman shot round the post.

Such goalmouth incidents were few and far between, however, in a dull, predictable and sterile opening 45 minutes - which must have been the easiest referee Bobby Orr has ever experienced.

The second half could have opened exactly as the first, with a first minute goal. The damage was done on the left by Arthur Numan and Arveladze, but the chance fell to the out-of-sorts Caniggia and his shot went wide of Cuthbert's post.

McLeish had seen enough and the South American, who had been booked for diving three minutes earlier, was pulled off in the 58th minute to be replaced by Neil McCann.

The pattern of the game was already depressingly replicating that of the first half, although Djebaili, the one St Johnstone player willing to mix it with the home side, caused an anxious moment for Rangers when he easily brushed Konterman aside before setting up Peter MacDonald. However, the former Ibrox youth player managed to blaze the ball over the bar.

The snores were reverberating around Ibrox when Mols woke everybody up with a hat-trick of misses.

First, in the 62nd minute, the striker met a Fernando Ricksen cross but headed tamely towards Cuthbert. That was conventional enough, but five minutes later he looked yards offside when Numan threaded the ball through to him inside the box. The linesman's flag stayed down, leaving the striker totally unattended, but somehow Mols steered the gift wide of the goal.

Sixty seconds later there was an encore, this time from a Ricksen corner, with Mols booting the ball into orbit from the centre of the six- yard line. An eventful seven minutes for the Rangers' favourite ended when he was substituted, to a standing ovation, by Tore Andre Flo.

Misses apart, he had again shown what a skilful player he is with the ball at his feet and deserved the applause.

The same could not be said for his replacement, who looked as if he had had just about enough of Rangers, a sentiment which was reciprocated towards him in the stands. The Norwegian looked as clumsy with the ball as Mols had been deft, and his efforts in front of the goal as the match petered out were depressingly dismal.

For their part, St Johnstone seemed content to only lose by a goal, although the dangerous Djebaili again caused a scare when, chasing a through ball, he forced Lorenzo Amoruso to fire the ball dangerously at Klos, who made the block.

At the other end, the Italian summed up Rangers' increasingly wretched afternoon with wasted free kicks, but at least there was a glimmer of class from De Boer when he weaved his way into a shooting position before, in accordance with much of what had happened before, shooting wide.

"Overall, no complaints," said Stark, whose side might have done better with just a hint of self-belief.

Copyright 2001
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