AH FEEL LIKE BUSTIN’ LOOSE! (GERS … 2 Hibees … 1)

I always feel like bustin’ loose, me. Vacuum-sucked into my 52 inch-waist Levis and continually topping it up with pie pitchers, Coke on the rocks shots and Mars Bar Duo chasers does not leave much room either inside my gut-chaffing jeans or in the row of the Govan Stand which I personally ensure is filled every home game. Things are packed tight in my world. And The Rangers, of Ibrox, of Govan, of Glasgow, of Scotland, ARE my world. And we’re keeping it tighter than a Philip Glass score these days. We’re more compact than Le Corbusier’s ethos, more concise than Hemingway’s prose, more compressed than the vatican’s thinking on human fertilisation and embryology and as utterly condensed, binded and fused as Michael Flatley’s choreography.

And The Rangers show no signs of wanting to bust loose. At least, unlike the belly which heaves at my straining, reinforced-concrete belt buckle, we show no obvious signs of escaping our rigorously minimalist approach to success on all fronts. Our squad is still gelling, is yet to be completed. We’re working on meagre enough rations for one title, never mind a Quadrouple of contests. So we spread the goals thinly over a large area. We’re about conceding as few as we can then exploiting the maximum value from those we score. The Rangers are indeed dealing sma’ tae feed aw … but, on closer examination, the delightful dishes being served are, almost imperceptibly, leaving less and less room on the plate they slop upon. Ye’d need to be a stem-cell researcher to see it but it’s happening - The Rangers are getting a bit flashy - and there’s fuck all you, I or the Bishop of Cardiff can do to stop it:

Nine days ago we pulled off a massive European result by losing one goal and scoring nil. Six days ago we came from behind twice - five minutes from the end of normal time, seven minutes from the end of extra time - and then won the game and the League Cup by going ahead for the first time in the whole day only after the last ball of the penalty shoot-out had been kicked. Three days ago we came back just once but that time we did it a mere two minutes after going behind. Today, we actually TOOK THE LEAD. We haven’t taken the lead in a game since the last time we played Hibs, in the Scottish Cup. Even that day we scored just one goal and ended the game by hanging on to our clean sheet with ten men against eleven. The last time we took the lead in a league match was way back on the very first day of this soon-to-be-dead month, in the 50th minute of our victory over Aberdeen. We eventually won 3-1 but Aberdeen had taken the first lead that day. Now, in the Easter Weekend, we’re going 1-0 then 2-0 up. Rangers, it seems, have begun stretching out just a little bit. We’ve rode out a period of strenuous minimalist succesful continuation of our Quadrouple Quest. And, with a free week ahead for many of our players, we almost couldn’t help going a bit wild today.

We went 1-0 up on Hibs before half-time. There were more than eleven minutes remaining when Nacho Novo made it 2-0. Thank fuck Dean Shiels pulled one back, on the stroke of the ninety, for Hibs. Otherwise folk would have noticed - it would have been all too obvious that this edition of The Rangers thinks it’s become a proper team without having secured as much as an SPL title, that we’d peaked too early. This surely is why our entire defence stood like statues as the one-eyed Hibernian striker - the kind of unfortunate bloke who could seriously benefit from the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos - collected the re-bound of his earlier shot onto the bar and walked it into the back of our net, untroubled by blue-shirted or goalie-gloved interference.

We NEEDED that two-and-a-half-minute panic in injury time this afternoon. We HAD to see Barry Ferguson and Nacho Novo playing keep-ball in the Govan-Copland corner of the pitch for the last thirty seconds of that over-run. A two-goal win over Hibs would have been too much, too soon. Celtic can take the goal difference advantage again when they hammer Gretna in Livingston tomorrow. Gordon Strachan knows what the free-voting Labour MPs would not - that following an inevitable win over the borderers with a very do-able win over the Govan-ers will have Sellik back top of the SPL by late lunch next Saturday. The game-in-hand which adds to Parkhead woes right now will suddenly count for absolutely fuck-all to the born-again, pro League-lifers in Glesgie’s venerable East End next weekend, if they do The Gers in Gersville.

So wee need to keep our game on track lest we get our wig pushed back. We must keep it tight right up til play-time next Saturday. We can’t go over-stretching ourselves before facing the side we must stretch away from for SPL glory. Hibs were a warm up and, in a practise run you always hold plenty back. You hedge bets, maintain options, don’t commit - you remain pro-choice.

Kevin Thomson got the texting fans’ man of the match, Jean Claude Darcheville got the BBC man of the match but, for me, SASA PAPAC was freakin sensational for Rangers today. When a centre half is yer star man while playing at left back I think it tells you all you need to know about the long-term, near-scientific approach Rangers are currently employing. Hibs were of absolutely no touble until the game seemed won. They didn’t breach us until the clock struck ninety as Dean Shiels struck our bar then our net. Sasa Papac stood out a mile - we will be less likely to defeat Celtic if our left back is Rangers Man Of The Match on derby day. This was the final side-show day before the real event. And Walter clearly had to work hard to ensure the players treated it as such. Ye could almost see the leash stretching from dug-out to pitch, “common sense” studded along the collar, the team being continually reined back from jugular-ripping excess.

Davie Weir, Carlos Cuellar, Barry Ferguson, Darcheville and Dailly all CRUISED through this game. Allan McGregor became so bored he practically fell asleep. The spine of the team was having a wee mini holiday and taking it in turns to torture Hibs’ left-back, Zarabi - possibly the most head-spinningly poor Number Three I’ve seen play at Ibrox since that bloke who used to be at Aberdeen a few seasons back. We were keeping a massive lid on it today. We were reintroducing the first-teamers who were rested for the Thistle game but most of them had to force themselves to rest up on the pitch today. The Red and Black socks are back on, the domination of the opposition is once again near-total, the 1-goal-maximum difference in games with Hibernian this season has been maintained but cannot deflect from the fact Rangers are ready to go fucking crazy. The constraints are becoming beautifully burdensome: Everything’s PERHAPS coming to the brilliant boil. The goal Darcheville scored would NEVER EVER have been scored by Kris Boyd - raking in from the left and slashing home from a wild angle. The one Novo scored would ALWAYS be scored by Kris Boyd - defender fails to clear, POUNCE! Dailly gave us a padlock on the defence which looked luxurious until you realised Nish and Fletcher got no service all day. Lee McCulloch has been superfluous since his dismissal at Pirttodrie and yet we were able to both carry him and surrender another midfield attacker from the traditional 4-4-2 and still beat Hibs all ends up.

Barry Ferguson was playing some sublime little flicks and tricks today but no-one really noticed because we were holidng back. Kirk Broadfoot looked like a more composed and skilful Alan Hutton. Davie Weir even took a free kick at one point - it was getting fucking ridiculous. But we managed it. We managed to camouflage yet another slaughtering of Hibs in a 2-1 scoreline. As per the league meeting at Easter Road in December we were never in trouble until we almost threw it away. Genius. Brilliant. Clever. Tight.

We’ve managed to get to the end of March, on top of the league, with a cup under our belt and Europe still on the agenda, but with no genuine idea if we will win the SPL. We NEED to play Celtic to find out. We need to play Celtic again to discover if there’s any truth in the rumours that (a) this is the best long-con Walter Smith has ever concocted or (b) if back wheel-hogging Celtic have been playing us like Lance Armstrong played so many peleton leaders down the years. I honestly have no idea if Rangers ar ready to implode or explode. Something, however, clearly has to give. Something must break free. I’m wrapped tghter than a young Dirk Bogarde having his first sexual encounter with a cling-film fetishist - only The Gers can release me. I’m willing to wait til mid-May for sweet release - but a wee loosening of the belt next Saturday will certainly ease the discomfort sufficiently.

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Published:
03.22.08 / 8pm
Category:
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