Recently there has been a slight current slight dip in form from Olwethu Makhanya. It has led to three conceded goals in the last two matches. However, he is by no means the only player who has not quite hit the heights in the last three halves of Rangers football. Emmanuel Fernandez Rangers problems are an increasing issue.

There is no question that Emmanuel Fernandez is a diabolical defender. He plays for Rangers because of his height and his strength in the air. He gets to a lot of clearances (13 at Dundee) and, of course, he is powerful with the header. However, his concentration and poor judgement at times leave a lot to be desired. At this point, the hype train over him, which seems to suggest that he has all the tools to be a great defender, appears to have gone to his head. The Emmanuel Fernandez Rangers problems are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Emmanuel Fernandez Problems

To this very day, Ibrox Noise still has not been won over by the player that we call Manny. The simple reality is that he is horrendous on the ball, has absolutely no composure, makes some diabolical decisions and simply does not concentrate.

He is lazy and unfortunately, we believe it is now starting to impact on his partnership, if that is what you would call it, with Olwethu Makhanya. Makhanya has been covering for Fernandez’s mistakes, but unfortunately Makhanya is only one man. That may be part of the reason why Makhanya’s own form has started to deteriorate in the last couple of matches.

But Fernandez has been doing this ever since he joined in the summer of 2025.

The £40 Million Hype Train

We all remember, of course, when Scott Fry became set piece coach and randomly Fernandez nailed three or four headed goals from set pieces. Suddenly, this £300,000 value joke of a loser defender from Peterborough had become a £40 million defender that Barry Fry had decided was going to find his way to Bayer Leverkusen.

In all fairness, most of the clickbait ran riot with that story, and Sevilla for that matter. Not only that, but Borussia Dortmund were apparently going to sign this boy too.

But today, all we see is a completely hapless, low concentration defender who might get to an awful lot of aerial balls because of his height and gets a heck of a lot of clearances in, but every other part of his game is poor.

If all he ever had to do was clear the ball and head it away, then he would be great. But unfortunately, defending is not that binary or simple. The rest of the game that he needs to be at least competent at, he is very, very poor at.

Emmanuel Fernandez Judgement

What frustrates us hugely is the cockiness with which he describes and discusses other players, as if his judgement alone is very important when his own game is already extremely weak.

It reminds us of the times when James Tavernier, whose own defensive game was lacking to say the least, would pass judgement on his teammates, praising this, that and the next thing and saying how great they were.

But then it was not his place to say that because his own game was not living up to that.

We just are not keen on Fernandez, never have been and never will be, and we know we are not the only Rangers fans who believe this.

Rangers Defensive Concerns

He is in defence because of his height and clearances, but if it was down to anything else, there is no chance he would be playing for this club continuously.

Manny is an absolute mainstay, but he has certainly made a lot of errors in his time at Rangers and has cost a lot of goals. He played a huge part in why Rangers did not pick up three points in Dundee.

Of course, he is by no means the only guilty party, but it is abundantly clear that he is causing a lot of problems back there, problems others are having to clean up.

The Emmanuel Fernandez problems are not simply about one poor night at Dens Park. They have been there for a long time.

But then, is that really anything new for Rangers in the last 15 years?