It’s been a busy week for Rangers, off the field as much as on it if truth be told. I will try to write about off-field topics in another article later, but I’ll stick to the on-field stuff mostly today.
Coming off the back of their worst performance of the season away to Hamilton where they barely deserved the share of the spoils, Rangers beat Kilmarnock 1-0 at Ibrox on Saturday.
Firstly the Hamilton game though. In all my years watching football, I think that was possibly the best I’ve ever seen a Hamilton team play, to be honest. They deserved at least a point, in my opinion. They were excellent and equalised with the last kick of the ball in the 94th minute after an own goal had given Rangers the lead.
Rangers will likely take that as a point gained rather than two points lost as even Steven Gerrard admitted his team didn’t really deserve anything from the match. Hamilton were excellent and backed a great performance up with another outstanding win against Motherwell on Saturday and fair play to them.
Kilmarnock however really are a poor lot at the moment. They turned up on Saturday, played their low block and didn’t venture up the park much at all. If I were a Killie fan, I’d be concerned and disappointed in equal measure right now.
Where the results will come from I’m not really sure as they offered so little to the game. They’re not the first side to turn up at Ibrox this season and not get a single shot on target but the manner of their performance, well it looked to me like they were a beaten side before a ball was kicked in anger.
Rangers now go to Belgium to face Royal Antwerp; they will be a very decent side that’s for sure. They sit second top in the Belgian Pro League, just behind Club Brugge and above Standard Liege, a side Rangers beat home and away in the Europa League Group Stages.
Liege were a good side that caused Rangers some bother in both ties earlier in the season so I would expect the games to be very similar to that. Belgian football is on the crest of a wave as we’ve all seen over the last decade, and you simply don’t get poor Belgian sides in UEFA competitions so Gerrard’s men will need to be fully concentrated and on their A-game to get through the tie.
Am I confident? Well yes. This Rangers side excels in Europe, and it’s something we’re all proud of as fans of the club. I’m sure Antwerp will come out and play football too which I think will suit this Rangers team that have had to face a low block and 5-4-1’s or 5-5-0’s since the turn of the year.
It’s a compliment I suppose but on heavy, wet, churned up pitches it can be incredibly difficult to break decent, organised sides in the SPFL down. Our league is decent, make no bones about it. The top two are miles ahead of the rest and usually always are, but you can’t fault the managers of clubs who make their teams incredibly difficult to beat while setting their team up to try to hit on the counter-attack. They have a fraction of the big two’s budget, and they do their best with what they have usually.
Thursday’s game will be a welcome distraction from the intensity of the SPFL title march that Rangers are on. It’s free hit and a break from league duty against a team who will want to win and not sit in hoping for a point. This might well suit Rangers, but we will wait and see how the first leg goes over in Belgium. However, it is a diversion from the monotony of Scottish football.
After that Rangers will be at Ibrox on Sunday to play a Dundee United side who surprisingly sit in the top six. If I’m honest, I expected them to be relegated straight back down to the Championship, but they’ve been better than I thought they were.
That’ll be a challenging game but one I would expect Rangers to win if they go about their job properly. They have done exactly that in just about every game this season. Two possible exceptions being the St Mirren game that saw them knocked out of the League Cup and the Hamilton game last week.
Apart from those two games, there’s not much to get annoyed about is there? It’s been an outstanding season so far if you’re a Rangers supporter. Incredible levels of consistency and for the most part, some fantastic football to watch as well.
I’ve watched and listened to some analysis of Rangers since the Old Firm game at the turn of the year and usually, it’s made me laugh. Gerrard’s side are dominating most games they play, creating three or four times the amount of chances opponents are mustering but all I keep hearing is not vintage, ground out or not as good as earlier in the season. Week in week out it’s all the pundits can muster.
I think this Rangers team deserves far more credit than it’s getting for dropping a mere eight points so far this season.
There’s plenty of reasons for that; it’s a Scottish winter for a start. Pitches all over the country are awful, as bad as I’ve seen in a long time actually. Teams are now playing each other for the fourth time this season. Rangers are the best team in Scotland by the length of Sauchiehall Street, so opponents have changed their tactics to suit that, leaving much less space for Rangers to play in.
Injuries, suspensions etc. also play a part, and that’s to not even bother mentioning how disrespectful it is to other teams in Scotland who’ve proved already this season how decent they can be.
All you need to do is look at how many points Celtic have dropped in this campaign. If you’re not 100%, then the other teams in the league are more than good enough to take points from either of the Old Firm.
Rangers now sit thirteen points away from being crowned Champions of Scotland. That’s thirteen points at most. If Celtic drop anything (I felt they were fortunate to win against St Johnstone last Sunday) then that points tally becomes less obviously.
From that game in Brechin in July 2012 to being the champions of Scotland in nine years. Let it sink right in. That is the stuff of legend, of fantasy. When you consider the financial power and advantages Celtic had over Rangers during this last decade.. a figure that is a third of a billion pounds from when Rangers were playing in the semi-professional bottom tier of Scottish football?
The achievement is inspiring, and it is monumental. For me, it’s the greatest achievement of any sporting club or individual of my lifetime, and I genuinely mean that.
To take this club, throw them to the gutter, try to kill them off and insist they weren’t needed for years, but still they pushed, despite everything that happened to them in the first five or six years of their comeback?
Well, Scottish football hasn’t seen anything yet. Rangers are about to be SPFL Champions 20/21, they are in the last thirty-two of the Europa League, again. And ultimately, Rangers are going into only two Champions League qualifiers next season if they can get those thirteen points required.
The ultimate journey, from Annan to the Champions League in less than a decade. Drink it in. Soak it up. Enjoy every single moment of it if you’re a Rangers supporter, as it will be the sweetest and greatest title of my lifetime. In fact, it’s the most remarkable title win in the history of the game anywhere in the world.
The financial disadvantage thrust upon Rangers football club will never be seen again. There were so many people, an element of the Scottish game that tried to kill off an Institution. It was political, it was horrendous, and it was tantamount to loading the dice in favour of one other party and that party alone.
Cast your mind back on the summer of 2012 and the hatred for a football club. The blood lust. The very notion that Scottish football “didn’t need Rangers” was the biggest self inflicted wound in the history of any sport anywhere in the world.
There’s only one club that benefited from that and to the tune of £332 million. That’s the enormity of the achievement we are just about to witness and that was the size of the task. Monumental in size but Rangers are now on the verge of reaching the summit of a mountain twice the height of Peak 15.
It will truly be the greatest sight that I have ever seen as and when it comes. The Rangers support deserve this, they’ve watched as their rivals across the city attained a financial disparity that simply could not be explained in normal circumstances. What we are about to witness has been achieved despite everything going against them. It really is the most sublime success in the history of the game. Be in absolutely no doubt of that.
Rangers fans will never forget it, never forgive those that stabbed them in the back, and the rest of Scottish Football may be about to reap the whirlwind.
Don’t worry though and don’t be coy. Rangers are about to be crowned the Champions of Scotland for the fifty fifth time, and you can be rest assured they will make themselves heard all over the world.
The rest of Scottish football will just need to suck it up. Rangers, looking down from above. It’s got a lovely ring to it, has it not…?
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