Gers Entertain Toon Army With Fine Victory

Rangers produced an impressive performance to see of Premiership newcomers Newcastle United in a 2-1 victory, with goals from Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith.

The Toon Army brought a strong travelling support and were in terrific voice for most of the game. Rangers opted for 4-3-3 again, with Steven Naismith, Kenny Miller and Steven Whittaker the three men in attack for the SPL Champions. Newcastle fielded a strong eleven aswell with Kevin Nolan and Jonas Gutierrez two of the more familiar names in the side.

The Premiership side started strongest early on with Wayne Routledge causing a few problems on the right-hand side. Midfielder Joey Barton headed over early on and the onslaught continued with a number of crosses being fired into the Rangers penalty area. Steven Whittaker, playing out left, produced an excellent run and slid the ball across goal with no takers there to tap the ball home. The visitors should have taken the lead after 16 minutes when Andy Carroll’s header was blocked on the line and the Toon Army failed to bundle the ball home.

But the Gers opened the scoring just 7 minutes later when Steven Whittaker’s pin-point cross was met by Kenny Miller who headed home past Steve Harper. The in-form Miller scored a second goal when he rounded Harper and slotted into an empty net but the linesman judged him to be offside.

In the second-half, Rangers continued where they left off and were dominating across the pitch. Steven Davis crossed for Madjid Bougherra who headed over and Kirk Broadfoot had an excellent shot palmed over the crossbar by Harper. The Gers made their domination count on 65 minutes when Steven Naismith fired home after an excellent pass from the classy Davis.

Former Rangers striker Peter Lovenkrands got a standing ovation from both Rangers and Newcastle supporters when he came on to the field. The Danish international had 6 years at Ibrox and was a key part of the side which reached the Last 16 of the Champions League in 2006. Funnily enough, he got on the scoresheet not long after coming on when he tapped into an empty net to make it 2-1.

Rangers handed sub appearances to Gregg Wylde, Kyle Lafferty, Andrew Shinnie, Kyle Hutton and Andrius Velicka towards the end of the game and manager Walter Smith believes his side are ready for the new season next weekend. He said: “Newcastle made us work very hard. People talk about the fact they’ve just come up from the Championship but they are a Premiership team. There’s no doubt about that. They’ve got a higher standard of player than the majority of the teams they played last season and I expect them to do well this year. To be fair though, our boys turned in their usual hard-working performance against them and got a really good result. While we weren’t quite as good in possession of the ball as we have been in previous matches, we scored a couple of really good goals.”