friendly v Raith Rovers
By: j | July 26th, 2008
Todays friendly against Raith certainly didn’t provide the most optimistic of commentaries. Beyond a dreary first half performance was the injury of Carlos Cuéllar that will likely keep him out for upwards of two weeks, obviously including this Wednesday’s Champions League qualifier against Kaunas.
The match certainly took at different turn as Carlos Cuéllar limped-off at the twenty-ninth minute and the Gers mood seemed to drop. Prior to that a number of solid scoring opportunities by Kenny Miller and Kris Boyd were narrowly missed. Three minutes late a rare Allan McGregor miscue led to Raith scoring the opening goal and taking a 1-0 lead.
The half came to end and it wasn’t until the sixty-second minute with the triple substitution of Lithuanian Andrius Velicka, Nacho Novo and Dean Furman came-on that the Rangers seemed to get going again. Specifically it was Andrius Velicka, proving he wanted the starting nod this Wednesday against his fellow-countryman, feeding a perfect ball that Kenny Miller dished to Nacho Novo for the tying goal. At the seventy-ninth minute Kyle Lafferty crossed neatly to the back post where Daniel Cousin showed his predator side for the go-ahead goal and the 2-1 victory.
Walter Smith has quite a few decisions to make as Andrius Velicka, Dean Furman, Nacho Novo, Daniel Cousin and Kyle Lafferty proved worthy of the starting position. After reviewing injury status reports later today, I will update as we get closer to Wednesday.
RANGERS:
Allan McGregor, Kirk Broadfoot, David Weir, Carlos Cuéllar (Christian Dailly 29), Saša Papac; Steven Whittaker, Brahim Hemdani (Dean Furman 62), Charlie Adam (Kyle Lafferty 75), Kenny Miller (Daniel Cousin 76); Jean-Claude Darcheville (Andrius Velicka 62), Kris Boyd (Nacho Novo 62)
Subs: Alexander, Andy Webster, Paul Emslie
RAITH ROVERS:
McGurn, Wilson, Cook, Campbell, Ellis (Sloan 55), Walker (Silvestro 67), Dunbar (Wardlaw 62), Davidson (Wedderburn 76), Weir, Smith (Graham 74), Ferry (Beveridge 83)
Subs: Aackie
Category: Team News
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