Worse than Gassama: Rohl must drop Rangers flop who left McCoist speechless

Glasgow Rangers are all but out of the Europa League for the 2025/26 campaign after they lost for the sixth time in seven games against Ferencvaros on Thursday night.

The Gers, who took the lead through a brilliant Bojan Miovski goal, are six points adrift of the play-off places with two games left to play, which means that it would take a remarkable run of results throughout the league phase for them to remain in the tournament.

Too many of the club’s summer signings have failed to deliver on the European stage for any of their managers this season, including Djeidi Gassama.

Why Djeidi Gassama must be dropped

The summer signing from Sheffield Wednesday looked visibly upset at being taken off in the 59th minute by Danny Rohl against Ferencvaros, but it was a decision that was completely justified.

Gassama, who started on the left flank, had zero shots on goal and did not create a single chance for his teammates, per Sofascore, in almost an hour on the park before being substituted by the German boss.

Findlay Curtis came on seven minutes later and produced one shot on target and one ‘big chance’ created, per Sofascore, which suggests that he may have more to offer the team at the top end of the pitch at this moment in time.

That is why Gassama should be dropped from the starting line-up, after his poor display, to provide Curtis with an opportunity to start on the left wing.

The Frenchman is not the only Rangers flop who should be dropped from the team, though, as Emmanuel Fernandez should drop out after his dismal showing.

Why Rangers must drop Emmanuel Fernandez

The summer signing from Peterborough United has been given a run of games due to John Souttar and Derek Cornelius’ injuries, starting the last six games in all competitions.

However, Dujon Sterling made his long-awaited comeback off the bench against Ferencvaros, which means that Rohl now has a senior centre-back option to replace him with.

With Sterling available to come in, Fernandez should be dropped from the team after his poor performance against Ferencvaros, which left pundit Ally McCoist speechless.

As you can hear in the clip above, McCoist did not know what to say after the English-born defender was caught facing the wrong way for the home side’s winning goal.

Remarkably, Fernandez did not seem to react at all to Varga making the run straight at him until it was far too late, which is why he was even worse than Gassama on Thursday, as his error ultimately cost Rangers the game, whilst the winger merely had a quiet night.

The Rangers flop, as shown in the statistics above, lost half of his ground duels and the majority of his aerial duels on the night, which shows that his error for the second goal was not the only thing not to like about his performance.

Unfortunately, the former League One star’s struggles against Ferencvaros on Thursday night were not an isolated incident, as he also struggled against Dundee United earlier this month.

In the 2-2 draw with Dundee United, per Sofascore, the centre-back lost five of his 11 aerial duels and three of his eight ground duels, whilst he also got caught out for the opening goal in that game.

Fernandez got sucked in on the half-way line and was never able to recover to prevent Zac Sapsford from putting Dundee United 1-0 up in the match, as his lack of mobility cost him.

Among other things, it was also a lack of mobility that cost the defender against Ferencvaros as he was far too slow to turn and react to the danger of Varga’s run, which meant that he did not even compete for the header that eventually won the game for the hosts.

With his recent errors in mind, Rohl should ruthlessly drop Fernandez from the starting line-up against Hibernian at Ibrox on Monday night, and bring Sterling in for his first start of the campaign.

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