Andy Halliday admits seeing Rangers make wholesale changes ahead of Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Motherwell at Fir Park gave the former Ibrox midfielder added belief they could take points off Philippe Clement’s team.
With Thursday’s Old Firm showdown with Celtic on the horizon, the Belgian opted to make seven changes from the team that lost to St Mirren in Paisley on the previous weekend, with top performers Vaclav Cerny, Hamza Igamane and Nicolas Raskin all left out from the start.Moroccan forward Igamane came off the bench to bag a brace and help his team claim a share of the spoil, but the draw has now left the Light Blues trailing the Hoops by 14 points going into the third derby of the season.
And Halliday, who picked up the man-of-the-match award at Fir Park, believes Clement’s over reliance on sports science may have affected his team selection. Speaking on Clyde Superscoreboard, he said: “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that from seeing the starting XI before the game and seeing no Cerny and no Igamane that it didn’t give us a little bit of a boost.
At the end of the day that was their best two players (left out) along with Nicolas Raskin over the last few weeks. Raskin was another one who fell short with the sport scientist rules or maybe the old debate that if he got a booking he would miss the Old Firm.
“I just don’t think Rangers are in a position to make these changes because last week we were talking about potentially beating Celtic on January 2, going six points behind and potentially getting the title race back on. But the big part of that was beating St Mirren and ourselves yesterday, and they are now in a position where (they) could be 17 points behind Celtic.”
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