Three and uneasy - and Dons fans are sleazy (GERS … 3 A’deen … 0)

And, it has to be said, short-term, surface success is all you need when attempting to defeat Aberdeen these days. Furthermore, if we continue racking up “scores which flatter the reigning champions” and “making the Ibrox faithful wait til the final minutes before the victory was secure” then we’ll still win the league and qualify for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. So often the high standards set by our fans and our watching media, result in an avoidance of the most pertinent fact: Once again, Rangers won.

However, there’s little doubt The Rangers were far from impressive for long spells in this game and - the real worry - our personnel is minus yet another quality component. Arteta’s out for the Stuttgart game and the Verein fur Ballspiel from the Gottlieb-Daimler-stadion are about as similar to Aberdeen FC in terms of class as Sydney Devine to Frank Sinatra (and, yes, Syd, I’m talking about a DEAD Frank Sinatra!).

Put it this way, Aberdeen had ONE attack on our goal which merited a Klos save. The Pitiful-todrie ratbags don’t have their own problems to seek on either the long-term financial or short-term injury fronts and their sickening support ensures I feel nothing short of joy at the Grampian club’s plight. In fact, to digress for a moment from an entirely predictable match, I’d just like every Aberdeen supporter who sings songs about the Ibrox disaster and Ian Durrant’s leg break in 1988 to know that I’m fervently hoping Partick Thistle turn the corner and duly collect the half dozen points the Firhill club will require between now and the end of the season to leap above the shitey reds. I want St Johnstone to win the First Division because their ground fits the SPL criteria and I want, with all my heart, to see Aberdeen go down, down, DOWN.

As a lad, I remember when The Gers won only once at Pittodrie in 12 years. What joy that it’ll now be thirteen years since Aberdeen have won at Ibrox AT ALL. Every time I hear another crass attempt by the “Red Ultras” (don’t EVER try to associate yerself with anything as sophisticated as continetal hooligans, sheep-lovers - that banner only leads folk who know you to the conclusion you’re advertising some sort of scarlet-coloured wonder bra) to pretend they’re a great club once more by trying to convince the world they’re worthy of a rivalry with Rangers, it just makes me all the more glad they have a charlatan like Keith Wyness taking them apart from the inside on a daily basis.

We despise you, Dons, yes - but I also despise that blonde, Scottish bint who dumbs herself down to do the weather on BBC1’s Breakfast programme - and she ain’t no danger to Rangers’ dominance on the domestic front. (Unless, that is, she starts giving bogus forecats of hazardous flash-floods in the Govan area and we have to cancel all our home games and lose millions of pounds of income … No, Eck - leave it … take a another pill, mate.) Aberdeen FC can have a derby match with Cove Rangers … but never with THE Rangers.

And what a brilliant display by The Bears with the dubious pleasure of being sat closest to our wool-wearing friends from the Granite Sh*t-hole: The Blue Order excelled itself on Saturday. The Bears and Bearettes sat down the front of the Broomloan did more than their team ever did to put Aberdeen in their place. The Five huge Gold stars, the red, white and blue favours glinting in the November bleakness, the massive silky, spectacular, crowd-covering blue flag with emblem and the general noise level generated by these young cubs was an eon more worthy of gracing any curva in Serie A than any red duvet covered in tippex flaunted by wannabes from the North East.

On the field, We couldn’t give the ball away, although Emerson did try his best to do just that for the whole of the first half (what’s HAPPENED to that guy??!!) and was subbed at the interval for his troubles. But the youths who’d been brought in to shore up the Aberdeen defences did their job well and Preece, in goal, was having something of a stormer. One save from Mols in particular, at point-blank range, almost had me applauding an Aberdeen player (but that would just have proved how little I actually feel the need to hate them … wouldn’t it??!!)!

Some of the home punters actually booed The Gers off the pitch when we went down the half-time tunnel scoreless. While I’ve yet to encounter or even imagine ANY scenario which would see me booing Rangers, on this occassion it seemed particularly harsh. We’d looked sluggish and downbeat, yes, but there was never any real danger we’d not eventually score.

Just in case, however, McLeish put young Chris Burke on for Emerson and suddenly the puzzlement shifted from the Rangers punters wondering how the Brazilian could ever have lasted in the Premiership and La Liga to the Aberdeen defenders wondering where the hell the wee blonde guy on the right wing was going next. Burke managed to gloriously up the impetus that one-louder notch required to stretch Aberdeen too far. Their young defender Zander Diamond was rightly dismissed in 55 minutes for having the kind of name you’re only allowed on Buffy The Vampyre Slayer .. or was it for bringing down Arveladze, as the Georgian homed in on goal? Anyway, Diamond was the last man and Aberdeen’s last chance of a point.

A Shota cross in the 77th minute let Hughes head home the opener. That was enough for the same punters who’d been booing The Gers down the tunnel at half-time to believe victory was now secure and that there was nowt left worth watching. Peter Lovenkrands scored two goals in the last two minutes in front of a crowd which had just reduced itself by around 30%.

When you’re playing catch up with smellik, it’s even more exciting if you leave it late but it seems the inevitability of beating Aberdeen these days means Ibrox has little patience for the delivery of the execution. Do these people not remember the seventies and eighties? Chris Burke obviously doesn’t - he was too busy being born. And we’re all grateful he was born to play for Rangers.

GERS: Klos, Ricksen, Berg, Ball, Vanoli, Hughes, Emerson (Burke 45), Arteta (Ostenstad 71), Arveladze, Mols, Lovenkrands.

UNUSED SUBBIES: McGregor, Ross, Smith.

SCORERS: Hughes 77, Lovenkrands 89, 90.

PUNTEROS: 49,962

REFEREE: Wullie “always unpredictable” Young