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Continuing their recovery from a poor run of results, Rangers put five past Hamilton on Sunday, with Jermain Defoe getting on the scoresheet, too. Brian Rice’s side were blown away by Steven Gerrard’s men in terms of the scoreline, but the Accies boss was equally stunned by the outstanding quality of the visitors, drawing some incredible comparisons as he spoke after the defeat.
What did he say?
In a surprisingly upbeat interview considering his side had just been thumped, Rice said:
“I was watching Rangers, their movement, their passes, what everybody was doing and ‘wow, this is great, I love that’.
“I will use that. Now I need to try to get a little bit of that into my club.
“People use Barcelona and Manchester City. What I saw off Rangers yesterday, there are bits of that that I will use. Players need to see that.
“But we need to get to a bit of standard that they have set.
“I need to get my players to believe we can do a bit of that in a short period of time.
“If you sit on the edge of the box and park the bus as they say and lose a goal in the first five minutes, what do you do? You have set your team up to defend.
“We set the team up to try to attack and Rangers were too good for us. They were exceptional.”
Big praise for Gerrard and the Gers
Manchester City and Barcelona, champions of the Premier League and La Liga, respectively, are revered for their slick passing style and Rice thinks that Gerrard has got a bit of that going on at the Ibrox Stadium.
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Indeed, the Liverpool legend has imposed a system and an approach that has limited the use of long-balls unless absolutely necessary and the link-up play against the Accies was glorious, although even Gerrard would surely be surprised to hear the comparisons being drawn between his side and two of the top teams in Europe.