The Run Continues

Rangers are not used to fighting for second place in the SPL in the modern era; indeed, usually it is a scrap for the title, or a runaway lead. But not fending off sides for the runner’s up spot. No.

Regrettably, the start to this season has led to a dogfight for the more advanced positions in the league rather than the usual smooth transition to the top of the table Rangers fans are accustomed to, and has left a split support over the state of the club. Rangers are not used to being destroyed at Easter Road by Hibs.

However, recent weeks and maybe the last two months have witnessed a distinct resurgence in the side. Maybe not to the level of champions, there has been a substantial improvement, and the clobbering of Hibs at Ibrox plus the hearty fight at Parkhead have been evidence of a team beginning to believe in themselves again, and a manager finally starting to get to grips with the SPL.

It has taken far too long, granted, but to see a side with a genuine coherence emerging from the decimation of the squad as it stumbled from one impotent result to another is a pleasing upgrade to behold.

Witness then, the latest instalment of the anticipated revival, as the team faced an Aberdeen flying high in second place, two points ahead of the Govan outfit.
Hopes were high in the Granite City that Jimmy Calderwood’s men could sustain their own fine run of five straight victories, a record which had propelled them to the illustrious heights they’d been absent from for well over a decade.

But with a Rangers team finally starting to look settled, and possessing a spirit sadly absent from previous games, could the northern outfit gain another three points to force a five point gap between the two?

From the first minute to the last of this encounter, this revitalised Rangers fought for every ball. The passion, commitment and enthusiasm not to mention workrate needed for a game like this was abundantly present, and permeated every aspect of the match. From the moment the game began, each player fought tooth and nail to gain the upper hand, and to say the spirit of Rangers was alive and well was an understatement. The players might not uniformly be of the quality we expect, but when they fight so hard and work as a team, one cannot fault their contribution and commitment. And no Rangers fan accepts a side which withers and dies with nary a punch.

This team had punch, and plenty of it. Indeed, their rich effort was rewarded on 22 minutes when a Sionko cross was wildly miscued by Novo, and it looped up over Langfield, Nisbet style. An early lead attained, the victory was not secured, and only two minutes later Novo repaid the favour by sliding in a cross for Sionko to guide into the net at close range.

Now the lead looked comfortable, and it wasn’t until Lovell’s 84th minute tap in following a horrible error from the sub Rae gifted the Dons a backdoor route into the game.

Thankfully for the Ibrox men their excellent work over the 90 minutes was not to be undone and when the final whistle blew, another three points had been secured and a place jumped in the table.

No one would deny this group of players are not, by and large going to make the hall of fame, but they are garnering spirit and the desire to play for the jersey. It is just a pity it has taken this long.

That all said, no one would accuse Sebo of lacking spirit, but everyone would accuse him of lacking ability. It is a shame for the likeable Slovakian, but five months into his time at Ibrox has inspired no evidence for the case proving his class. Comparisons to Miller at Parkhead have been drawn, on the basis of the Scot’s scoring drought when he first arrived in the East end of Glasgow. Unfortunately, his contribution to the team was unquestionable, and while he was not scoring, he added so much more to the team. Sebo lacks any of that input, running around like a headless chicken unable to find his way to any kind of form, consistency, or even accurate passes. The fans will him to put his poor run behind him and find something, but the more time which passes and the more time he fails to deliver the more convincing the prosecution begins to look.

However, that said, it’s more prudent to focus on the effective afternoon enjoyed by the men in blue. We cannot ask more of them than they keep this up.

Moving along...

By and large Rangers-related news has been fairly dormant following Sunday’s clash with Celtic. The only real nugget from Ibrox has been a call of unity and defiant togetherness headed by the weekend’s scoring hero, Brahim Hemdani, who categorically stated that any rumours about splits between the home-bred players and foreign imports were wide of the mark. Indeed, he claimed the squad are a close-knit group and the spirit is good.
Quite where the original accusations of divisions actually originated from is anyone’s guess, unless of course the pre-OF showdown revelation of a disagreement between the captain and manager has been expanded in a tabloid manner to engulf the whole team.

Nevertheless, the overall feeling surrounding the Ibrox side is just a little bit better these days. Yes, by no means is Le Guen’s job here finished; he has a gargantuan amount of work to do, particularly next month when the transfer window re-opens and the possibility arises of acquiring some new personnel on the playing staff. However, this does not alter the fact that the last month or so, Falkirk aside, has witnessed an improvement from the team. The gap of 16 points up to the leaders remains an embarrassment, but the catastrophic chaos which surrounded the team in the earlier chunk of the season seems to have abated.

Fast-forward then to Saturday and a visit to Pittodrie as the side’s next business in the SPL. Matches against Aberdeen have rarely been easy in the last 20 years, and now that the reds are above Rangers in the table it is safe to conclude the impending fixture will be no different.

Furthermore is a spice inherent to this fixture. Ever since Neale Simpson’s hideous challenge on Ian Durrant during that delicate early-20’s stage of the Ranger’s career, which effectively stopped him going on to become one of the true greats at Ibrox, there has been viciously bad blood between the two clubs. Indeed, chants of ‘Simmie’ are frequently heard by the bluenose support, and only serve to peddle hate.

Moreover, the Aberdonians are even willing to stoop to glorifying the Ibrox disaster, in which too many lives were lost when a section of Ibrox terracing collapsed. Yet, this tragedy is used as a point scoring device.

Such behaviour leaves a bitterly nasty taste in the mouth; yes, the Old Firm dislike each other with a famously intense rivalry, but the Rangers Aberdeen relationship seems to occupy a true underbelly of loathing above and beyond. There’s something truly sinister about it, to such an extent that the nation’s constabulary will instantly arrest anyone singing about the Ibrox disaster on Saturday.

Let us hope the only thing the Aberdeen fans are singing about is their own pain at the result.

Old Firm Passion.

They came, they saw, and they…all went home fairly happy really.

The visit of Celtic at Ibrox was being heralded as ‘make or break’ for the men in blue. Already a humiliating 16 points behind their arch-rivals, the threat of an extension being added to that deficit loomed menacingly on the horizon. 16 is bad, but 19 would be beyond embarrassing, especially given the fact the season had not yet reached Yuletide. Nor even Christmas.

Going into this game, however, was an untimely public spat between the two most powerful staff affecting the team; the manager, Paul Le Guen, and the captain, Barry Ferguson. Having received word of the boss’s dismissive derision of the significance of the captain’s role, citing its lowly status back in his native France, the captain angrily responded categorically objecting to such comment and stating his abject disappointment at such a stance from his manager. Furthermore, adding fuel to the fire was his backhanded claim that Le Guen was lying, as his response to the Frenchman’s claim that the two of them had previously cleared this issue up between them was outright denial that such a meeting or conversation had ever occurred.

The reporting of this incident seemed to confirm, indirectly, strong and mounting speculation of rift between them; speculation dating back some months. This was the first time it had been so publicly exposed, however, and a split in the ranks would have been just what the doctor ordered for Sunday’s visitors Celtic.

Enter the Ibrox showdown, however, and five major changes had been made for the team; Clement, Sionko, Ferguson, Adam and Prso all started, with Buffel once again making do with a place on the bench. Likewise Sebo who must have been wondering if he would ever catch a break in Glasgow.

The game was played at a pretty harsh pace, with blood and thunder football in evidence. Rangers by and large controlled the flow of the first half, but were gutted when Graveson volleyed Celtic ahead. The second half was generally the same pattern, with chance after chance for the blues, but their inability to take them, until a break was caught when Hemdani fired one and saw it deflect off Graveson to sail nicely into the back of the net.

A word must go to two players who excelled; Ferguson was simply brilliant, and truly is back to his best, and is even perhaps surpassing it. His current form is the closest in Scotland to a genuinely world class player. And Boruc; the controversial Celtic keeper produced another of his wonderful displays to deny Rangers again and again – shades of Goram at times.

As well as these two, Svensson continues to improve, with another fine display to add to his Ibrox resume, and Clement showed his quality in this game when it mattered. However, last but not least was the stellar show from Hutton. Usually derided by the fans, he controlled McGeady gamely, and produced maybe his best performance for seasons.

1-1 it finished though, and nothing was really learned in the grand scheme of things. Rangers, yes, they are improving, and Le Guen masters the SPL ever more, and Celtic remain the team to catch.

Did we not already know this before kick off?