'Thanks for the miss' - Lyon ace rubs salt in Rangers wounds after glaring Ibrox error

Rangers could have hurt Lyon during a difficult start to the game at Ibrox but Vaclav Cerny woke them up by missing an open goal, says Maxence Caqueret.

The French midfielder thanked the struggling Gers winger for his role in helping the Ligue 1 side to a comprehensive 4-1 Europa League victory, after he fired over with the score goalless.

Malik Fofana and Alexandre Lacazette went on to score twice each on a chastening night, although Philippe Clement insisted afterwards it could have been very different [BBC Sport, 4 October] and Caqueret seems to agree.

He said, via the Daily Record (5 October): “It was actually a complicated start for us. They missed a huge chance early on and that could have changed the whole match. Then we had to make two substitutions through injury in the first half so it was difficult for us. Rangers could have hurt us at that point.

“The open goal miss definitely helped us because it gave us a slap in the face and we came alive after that. So thanks for the miss! After that, I think we were by far the better side. I thought Malick Fofana was incredible.”

Maxence Caqueret thanks misfiring Rangers ace for Ibrox reprieve

Goals change games as everyone knows but on a night where the Light Blues needed to be close to perfect they instead were the architects of their own downfall.

Clement does have a point that taking a couple of early chances would have made it a different game, but his claims would carry a lot more weight if it wasn’t something he often trots out off the back of poor results.

The Belgian can’t get Cerny to slot the ball into an empty net, just as he can’t prevent Connor Barron playing a suicidal blind pass into space for the second Lyon goal.

But he arguably shouldn’t have left the Czech winger in position to fire over the bar at all, having also had a glaring miss in the 2-0 victory at Malmo (26 September) go unpunished before another rough game in the 1-0 win over Hibs at the weekend (29 September).

Had Rangers punished Lyon when they were yet to settle early then the Ibrox crowd would have been up, a young Gers side would have had their confidence boosted, and the visitors would have been rattled.

But the Light Blues were continually playing catch up, and the miss seemed to upset them instead.

At the same time the manager can hardly act as if Rangers took some sort of moral victory when the performance fell away pretty dismally as the game went on, even where there is a grain of truth in that.

In other Rangers news, an Ibrox star’s days could now be numbered after a “dreadful” performance in the same game.

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