Sub-standard heroes … (GERS … 4 Livvy … 1)

There are a number of qualifications required for the status of Hero.

You must be a proven achiever: Dado Prso could stand on the half-way line drinking cans of lager for the next four years but his heroics last season alone would guarantee not one complant from most Teddy Bears. He led the line with distinction in our championship-winning season of 2004/2005.

You must perform particularly well on the big occasion: He’s scored a few against Celtic - the late-equaliser in last season’s League Cup quarter ended our old firm subservience of the previous 12 months - and he stands out a mile in European games - his goal against Famagusta was a thing of beauty;it got us into the Champions League and his efforts against Porto at Ibrox kick-started that historic campaign.

At some point you must be the one trying his heart out when those around you are hiding: The game in Bratislava against Artmedia was just one of far too many examples of Big Dado fulfilling this requirement.

You must be physically brave to the point of recklessness: Massive cut in napper from throwing his head in where it shouldn’t be - next thing he does is throw his head in where it shouldn’t be to score against Celtic and start our first league win in an Old Firm derby for over a year … and how does he celebrate? By running up to the enclosure SLAPPING THE BANDAGE ON HIS NAPPER!! (also, on 22nd May 2005, he publicly described champagne as a “ladies drink” - the look on his face told us he was openly insulting women: I’ve NEVER EVEN DREAMED of being THAT brave!)

You must have overcome adversity: Many cruel people would say managing to be so good in this Rangers team is doing just that but to come back after a long injury lay-off and score two in your second subs appearance is pretty much overcoming adversity when the odds are stacked against you.

You must have spectacular aesthetics: We’ve mentioned the goal against Famagusta - there was also the sweetest conversion of a through ball you’ll ever see in the first Old Firm game of this season, and then came yesterday: A direct free kick and a half-volley, both from the edge of the box into the net. And there’s the ponytail.

You must have spectacular timing: One in the 89th minute to seal the victory which previously looked ropey, one in the 90th to further prove that neither Kris Boyd nor Peter Lovenkrands are about to become the most revered forwards at Ibrox: They’ll have to do better than one month of goals or five in three games to overhaul Dado Prso’s place as Rangers’ current number one fan’s HERO.

As for the staus of Legend, well, Dado’s short of only one requirement, one not mentioned in the Hero criteria. The length of time he’s been at Ibrox. But only Davor Suker has won the Croatian Footballer of the year title more often. Again those trials and tribulations, so necessary for hero status, can be found in his eary days in the game - leaving a war-torn homeland with only a pair of fitbaw boots in his bag and travelling to France to ply his trade. He’s rejected initially and, in a foreign land, scrapes a living from car mechanics and late-night gambling. Then he’s scoring four goals in a single Champions League match and heading the opener in Monaco’s semi-final win over Chelsea which took the Monagasques to the final of the world’s greatest tournament and then scoring a belter for Croatia against the reigning champs at Euro 2004 … adversity, timing, aesthetics, big occasions, bravery: In his homeland and in his entire career, Dado Prso is very much a LEGEND.

Yet when he came on yesterday, my pleasure in seeing a beloved figure striding onto our pitch once more was overwhelmed by puzzlement, anxiety and downright concern that our manager had once again provided a noose for his own neck.

Peter Lovenkrands was the man coming off and, for all we love Dado, no-one expected him to be anywhere near as effective as he can be at his peak - this was only his second sub’s appearance since his two-month injury lay-off and we all saw how he toiled, albeit understandably, at Fir park last Sunday.

Lovenkrands had missed a few sitters and may never be as loved as Dado but, by Goram, he’s been our attacking sensation of the last month and a half. Boyd’s come in at the top of his poaching game and Buffel’s been everything from impressive to ON FIRE … but it’s all hung on the renaisance of Peter Lovenkrands. Yet again, yesteday, the Dane was at the heart of all we created. Even if he wasn’t touching the ball, his pace and presence - his six-week-long reputation - were scaring the shit out of Livingston.

But our manager seemed determined to commemorate a personal landmark by committing tactical and career suicide. At approximately 20 past 4, on the afternoon of his 47th birthday, Alex McLeish again removed a player whose only crime seemed to be playing well. Again the player looked perfectly fit and far from tired. Again, the Rangers lead was far from solid when this gaol-threat of ours was taken away … by our own gaffer!

Did I say “again”:

When Buffel was taken off against Falkirk at 2-0 up we knew it was to conserve the newly-recuperated Tommy’s match-fitness for the forthcoming Inter game but something about our form at the begging of December made us question the wisdom of such protectiveness - and Falkirk duly scored twice without reply before the end:

Against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, we saw Lovenkrands removed from the play despite scoring a hat-trick - in fact he was taken off at the very moment he completed the celebrations for his third goal. That was with twenty minutes left and at the second time of extending our lead from one goal to two. So some bastard called Kris Boyd duly scores for Killie ten minutes later and we’re yet again left defending a one-goal lead, but this time without our best player on the field of play and Kilmarnock safe in the knowledge they can open up our defence at will!:

Against Dunfermline at East End Park, Lovenkrands scored twice but, with us only ahead by the odd goal in five - just as we had been at Rugby Park - he was removed from the play and we duly conceded an equaliser:

Against Motherwell last week Thomas Buffel was just starting to run things up front but, with Rangers barely deserving their one-goal lead, he was removed from play long before the end.

It looks like we’ve twice got away with it and twice been punished. Before yesterday.

Before yesterday it looked as though this tactic of removing the guy who is obviously dictating the score-line in our favour is McLeish is trying to impersonate a cocky manager. When he takes these players - always attacking players - from the field, it reeks of a man pretending the game is won when everyting we’ve seen in the course of the game in question and the season as a whole makes it prefectly fucking obvious we just don’t EVER have games wrapped up before full-time these days.

I hope I’m underestimating Alex McLeish. I trust it’s a case of me not really understanding the game because I never played it professionally (Or even amateurishly). I hope what happened yesterday wasn’t just Rangers geting away with it for a third time out of fice (that I can think of off the top of my balding ginger napper) - that McLeish, having watched Prso in training all week, knew what the big man was likely to do, and do so much more effectively than his limited fitness had allowed him to at Fir Park. Because, Alex McLeish took off Peter Lovenkrands - a player who’d missed sitters and replaced him with Dado Prso, a player who scored two goals in a minute to seal the points for Rangers!

In-between Dado coming on and Dado hitting the net for the first time since Bratislava, the sense of anxiety was compunded by McLeish subbing Kris Boyd for Nacho Novo. Boyd scored a hat-trick on his first game at Ibrox and here, in his second, looked a cert to do the same. It went along with my feeling that Eck has a death-wish when he removed Boyd from the play in favour of a player who, again, was far from match fit and, what’s more, had actually bitched and moaned publicly last week about his lack of games and his tactical deployment when given a run.

There was a general feeling, I sensed from the Govan Rear anyway, that, had Sotirios Kyrgiakos not been replaced by yong Stevie Smith in the first half due to an untimely injury to the big Greek, Buffel would have become our third player to be hooked onto the bench BECAUSE he was contributing more and more as the game went on and was our third-best attacking option on the field. Chris Burke was electric with the ball at his feet but the moment it left his feet it went miles off its intended target - so it was agreed Burkey was doing just poorly enough to be assured of playing the full ninety. This sounds like sarcasm but, no, it really has become a discernible pattern: The more a player contributes to our attack, the more chance he has of being substituted.

But Nacho nodded it onto Dado for the Croat’s second of the day. What we were left with was what looked like an easy home win and all three ponts and a manager who has swapped one strike partnership which provided two goals for another strike partnership which provided two goals. Two pairs of strikers giving the team two goals each - that, in anyone’s language, is great management.

I went home with what I hoped was a fuller realisation than ever before of why I’m a football fan, a football man rather than a football manager. I went home hoping that my timeworn maxim of “judge only by results” was the best way to view what I’d just watched.

What happens when McLeish takes off these strikers is a mass drawing of attention to our defensive shortcomings. Everyone thiks they’ve seen the Rangers attack in full flow for most of the game and the Rangers defence struggling for the full game. It certainly feels that way at times but, of course, you cannot have both these factors simultaneously. if the attack’s going great guns then the defence must, by definition, enjoy long spells of inactivity.

What we really see is occassional bouts of clumsiness and uncertainty from our rearguard. These are highlighted to a greater degree by the proximity of the opposition in terms of score-line. When Big Marv flattens Big Boab as the two of them AGAIN go for the same high ball, you think “why the fuck is he tinkering with his attack when the back-line is so vulnerable??!!

But, of course, attack is the one area of the pitch where Alex McLeish actually has options. Ian Murray - threatening to be one of the most quietly brilliant signings McLeish has ever made - was forced to fill in at centre-half for 52% of the game because, with Pierre-Fanfan a write-off for whatever reason, and J-Rod injured, there was little option. For a left-back-cum-left-midfielder who’d played at right-back for the last few games, Ian did none too bad alongside Marv. But Livvy’s equaliser, coming at the end of a four-minute spell of pressure from the vistors, saw Ian hopelessly out of position and the sad sight of Right-back Riscksen (another guy not fully match-fit) and Diddy-man-sized winger Chris Burke, trying to fend off aerial challenges from the sturdy West Lothain attackers and the man mountain Gabor Vincze. The Hungarian midfielder simply brushed these two aside before slaming the bal into the net.

At the back we are frail, yes. But we have no-one to replace our existing defence. No-one whose any better or fit enough to prove their better anyway.

So the best form of defence is attack and when ye can’t freshen up yer defence ye freshen up yer attack so that best form of defence can re-double its efforts.

That’s my explanation/excuse for the substitutions yesterday (The aforementioned Falkirk and Dunfermline games I’ll just conveniently ignore) and I’m sticking with it - the fact we won 4-1 makes it all the easier and that’s what it’s all about: As long as we win all is forgiven. Right?

Happy Birthday, Alex and - hey - me and you both know that our best attacking player always last the ninety minutes anyway, doesn’t he: Barry Ferguson took a few howls of anger from the stands yesterday but that’s like berating your heart for pumping blood to the parts of your body you’re not so keen on - so it seems like I’m not the most tactically unaware person at Ibrox these days after all…

I just hope Eck McLeish isn’t one of those making me feel clever.