Rangers recent stumbles continued on Sunday afternoon as they were unable to get maximum points from thier game at Ibrox.

The champions were unable to break Motherwell down in the Scottish Premiership clash, as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Graham Alexander's side.

Steven Gerrard's team came into the game off the back of a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Ligue 1 outfit Lyon in the Europa League last Thursday and were unable to return to winning ways in domestic action.

Fashion Sakala opened the scoring in the first half with his first goal for the club, with a second-half equaliser from Motherwell ensuring the game ended square.

One player, in particular, who struggled in the match and contributed to the Gers failing to pick up all three points was central defender Jack Simpson.

Gerrard dropped experienced, reliable, centre-back Leon Balogun to give Simpson a chance to show that he can perform at this level. Instead, the defender provided the head coach with a reminder of why he is not a first-team regular at the moment as he failed to grasp his opportunity.

Simpson was not at the level required to make a positive impact on the match. For the Motherwell goal, the defender allowed a player to dribble the ball past him in the box with relative ease as the defender stuck a lazy leg out and failed to cut out the danger. The forward failed with his attempt but the rebound then fell to the eventual goalscorer, who was able to prod home.

His all-around defensive play was also poor. Per SofaScore, the lightweight lost 67% of his duels on the pitch, losing six of his nine battles in total. He was also dribbled past three times, one of them being for the goal, and only made two tackles, whilst making zero interceptions. This shows that he was ill-prepared for what Motherwell had to throw at him.

On the ball, he was composed, albeit uninspiring. Per SofaScore, he completed 86% of his passes and gave possession of the ball away seven times in the 90 minutes. He failed to register a shot at goal when coming up for set-pieces and did not create any chances for his teammates or complete any dribbles, showing that he did not step out from defence to push the side up the pitch.

Therefore, Gerrard will be feeling let down by the defender as he put his faith in Simpson to step in for Balogun and perform. Instead, he was partially to blame for the equalising goal and struggled with the physical side of the game against Motherwell.

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