Rangers’ pressure on Scottish Premiership leaders Celtic continued Saturday with Malik Tillman picking up where he left off prior to the March international break.
Tillman scored twice as Michael Beale’s squad defeated Dundee United 2-0 at Ibrox Stadium. The Bayern Munich loanee now has 12 goals in all competitions, with 10 of those coming in league play.
Tillman is the ninth player in the SPFL this season to register double-digit goals.
“I am always happy if I score and assist goals, it is always nice to help the team and I am pleased with that one,” Tillman said postmatch. “It is amazing, I think the team helps me a lot, they create space for me as well, so I am just there and enjoying my football.
“Winning is always important, we played a decent game, but we can still improve so we are looking forward to next week and try to win that game as well,” Tillman added.
Rangers took a 1-0 lead before halftime with Todd Cantwell setting Tillman up for his first tally of the afternoon. Tillman took Cantwell’s pass in stride before hitting a low drive into the back of the net.
Rangers would hang on for a shutout victory over the current last place team in the division, staying six points back of Celtic. Tillman created the most chances (5), won the most duels (9), and completed the most dribbles (6) in his 85-minute performance.
“Malik hadn’t played for a few weeks and then he scored in the last game at Motherwell, but it was important we got him as many minutes as we could safely and I thought he was good today,” Beale said about Tillman.
Up next for Rangers is a rivalry showdown with Celtic on April 8 with a great opportunity to cut its deficit even more heading into the final six weeks of the league season.
While I think the Malik has been good for Rangers and they for him, he’ll need to step up leagues if he’s going to challenge for a spot within the USMNT. With Pulisic, Weah, Aaronson, Booth, Zendejas, Peredes all challenging for spots…Malik will have stiff competition.
The next 2 years watching these guys fight it out will be very entertaining to watch as a fan. Just hope we can find a quality coach to lead this team. We’ve got a wide range of attackers and better depth than at any previous point in USMNT history.
Still need that clinical finisher (Balagon hopefully), a back-up to Adams at the CDM position, and someone to back-up Jedi at LB. Otherwise I like our player pool and how it’s developing.
He is more of a 10. So his challengers will be Reyna and Aaronson. Rangers are trying to sign him long term. Even if he does sign with Rangers he won’t be there for long.
Until we get a full time manager it’s unclear what the tactics will be. Hudson used a 10 (Reyna) this past window but that may have been due to the opponents or that Adams wasn’t available to play the lone 6.
Malik & Reyna may be best as an attacking CM, but Gregg’s preference was to use Reyna as a RW. Since Malik has been used as a winger, CM, & striker he can fit into a number of formations. However, Reyna, Aaronson & Booth are all capable of playing on the wing or centrally….so he’s still going to be facing stiff competition.
in terms of him staying at rangers, we shall see. bayern will want significant hard currency and many of these scottish loans seem to run into them being eager to have outside talent come in and help but then often being cheap when the option comes due. weah didn’t get bought from lille while at celtic……they are cheaper than people think…..
the arguments seeking to send players like this back to the big 5 are confused and all over the place. what you have just seen — yet again like pepi, CCV, and others –is forgotten big league asset goes to smaller league and makes their name. what do you want to do? send him right back where he got in trouble. “this” is all off moving to rangers. and as with everyone else now he needs to move. ooooooooh-k. makes no sense.
the suggestion it’s not good enough a level is contradicted by the fact the people drooling over him like his form there. so it obviously counts for something. he will likely make the NL A team so leave him be for a year or two. let him make his case. before you hit him with the pepi torpedo.
LIS: i think we are heaping up enough talent that while being versatile might help you fight for the bench, are you actually good at a role to start. you then fairly assess that the cart is before the horse in the sense it’s unclear how hudson or his successor will play. nonetheless they will be seeking horses for courses.
i say this because i think some guys eg reyna musah tillman look like they could genuinely move around while some like booth are probably really specialists at the international level. his crossing looked like lynden gooch hitting balls in the stands. who disappeared. i don’t see how he’s in the top 5 or so wide, either side, or serviceable there as a sub in elite competition. at which point, so what that you can play there in league. far as i am concerned he’s a central player who was more productive there in league and whom hudson made the utter mistake of not trialing there where he belongs — particularly when the “primary” just tore his hamstring. if adams is still out this june then someone needs to play 6 and maybe 2 someones. and you can’t double count them as AMs if we need 6s bad. stupid, stupid, stupid.
that being said, hudson used the “pointy triangle” with the A team and that suggests that is the more likely june scenario. conversely GC is usually dictated by player access and second choice or experimental, and as such you just slap together tactics with what is available.
that and to me the team has been begging for a central playmaking capability since GB got hired. we have been fairly predictable in slow building to a wide cross in. i think we look a lot more interesting with a central 10 element capable of more direct passing between the opposing wingbacks, or taking shots. i also think if teams have to honor a 10 centrally coming right at them then that can open up wide players more. so it is not just a choice he made, it solves some issues.
What I could find IV, is it’s around 6-7 million buyout but Bayern retain the right to buy him back for a few higher than what Rangers pay.
100% agree. Tillman’s an obvious major talent, probably one of the top 2-3 in our pool in terms of ceiling when you look at him from a skill/athleticism standpoint…but he’s just 20, and effectively closer to 18 since he lost a year-plus to an ACL tear. And while Rangers is a good squad, the SPL is not a good league and it’s been pretty obvious in prior camps that while the talent is unquestionably there with Tillman the pace-of-play/speed-of-thought is not, yet. He doesn’t see it or process it fast enough yet, and only a tougher league will give you that.
I’d like to see him move to the Dutch or Portuguese leagues next year, and I think he’ll probably be ready for that Top-5-league move the year after that.
people forget he is on loan and a lot of this will come down to do rangers buy.
i think he’s done well by himself but the question as with a few others like dike is can he translate it to the NT. to me the final third product hasn’t been there with the NT.
almost more like a wing goal.
since GB fanboys adore “form.” case people missed it our form since the start of 22 is like tied uruguay saudi colombia wales england ES mexico lost holland serbia japan canada CR beat morocco iran grenada(x2) ES honduras panama. most of those Ws are tepid stuff. but we just need to gel the same players more to hear some talk. did we experience a different WCQ than i did, as in, 3rd place, struggling, made it on a tiebreaker? was the world cup not a 1-win slog? did they look better in all those weak summer 22 or january 23 games? or against ES the other day? did i miss something that justifies the continuity?
just odd. this hasn’t actually looked that good since summer 21 which i guess is why people like to talk GB is a winner and point back then. because most coaches who just handled a WCQ and WC would be touting that instead. if called on the carpet for your job you’re still talking how you once looked nearly 2 years ago something went badly awry.
Finally watched your Dynamo tonight. They just have very little in the final third. Just little threat at all from that front line. If Escobar hadn’t panicked and hacked Cowell they would have still come away with a point.
they seem to have decided a la barrett’s caretaker stint that their best chance of slapping together a marginal playoff team and breaking that infamy streak is defend like mad and even select attackers based on team defense. like GB’s arriola teams on steroids. sebas their DP is sitting behind baird along those lines.
i am skeptical as their GAA remains 1.4, they still can’t beat a high table team, and their general pattern in recent years is break out ok then wilt in the summer heat. i think they will be closer to the line. i think sebas is gone in the summer — he’s been sat 4 games — and that and any other changes will be the pivot point. but that’s next window.
re your comment, i was telling anyone who would listen the defense wasn’t good enough coming off the winter. i think they are flattered by the team defensive concept. if they had to defend a more exposed concept they would ship close to 60. so if they want to try to get in back end of the playoff teams they need to fix the defense. and it’s not like the lousy GM didn’t sign several already. the batting average on signings is just bad and SJ has already passed us from the bottom.
Perhaps the new signings just need some time to mesh. Or they just need to keep getting pks every week. Artur looks to be fitting in nicely but he doesn’t provide a lot of offense. Not sure if HH will last throughout a whole season in the Houston heat and humidity.
JR: i like yair gonzalez — that kid looked on tape like he has incredible speed and some technique — but he got sent to HD2, i think we have a slots limit issue. i like raines and he is starting to emerge centrally and fight coco and artur for time. i think they got one solid attacking pickup in bassi, but not enough to go end to end with teams. i think most of what they signed for defense is junk. but they are trying to play energetic team defense from the 9 backwards. i don’t see a “PK offense” as sustainable, nor do i see a defense with bad talent flattered by the scheme as holding up all season long — as opening night and the SJ game just showed.
per usual it’s gonna be can they limp this until the next window and then sell sebas and repair the defense better.
i personally would swap out all 3 DPs because the ceiling is about 6 feet high on this team. it’s marginal to get us anyplace. the DPs aren’t dominant enough and sebas has been benched. HH to me reflects an indecisiveness about the place since kinnear left. kinnear would not have waffled. he’s playing better but if you had $4-5m would you spend it on a 6/8 of modest production who doesn’t destroy the other teams’ offenses. he also ahem only plays so much of seasons anymore. and then hadebe while solid is not dominant enough and can go to sleep and be beat by players like wood.
houston is trying desperately to do just enough for 9th but what we need is rebuild the core where it’s not so marginal to begin with.
Doesn’t make sense Ferreira scored 13 last year and Baird has scored 13 in the last 5 seasons. I thought bringing in Olsen was a questionable decision. He had been really hanging on for awhile at DC and was only boosted by Acosta and Rooney in his later years there.
Keep it up! Should feature this summer. We may have two Tillmans on the US roster this summer. Timmy has been really good for LAFC too.