STAND UP FOR THE TEDDY BEARS! (Tic … 2 GERS … 1)

The immediate congratulations must go to Celtic. They kept going, as they always do at home, and well done to them for proving all their own knee-jerk critics wrong. Ye don’t win two leagues on the trot and twice make it to the last 16 of the Champions League by accident. Just when they looked down and out this evening they came up with the goods - sign of a quality side.

However, on a long-term note, I would like to offer a massive note of appreciation to Rangers and Walter Smith. I make that a run of 27 domestic games undefeated which has just come to an end. Astounding. And we didnae exactly roll over and die tonight either, as we failed to make it 28-in-a-row. It’s only when ye get that first defeat - and it always comes at Parkhead - that ye can properly sit back and say “well done”. We’re not in the mood for dishing out the laurels at the moment, troops, I know but - hey - when ye look back on our unbeaten run of 44 games in 1992/93 ye don’t really remember the 2-1 defeat at Parkhead which brought that sequence to an end; Ye just think “Man! Walter really is a god”.

Irrespective of what occurs between now and the end of May, we’ve had Mr Smith’s deification reconfirmed by this season’s amazing sequence. Remember too that this 27-game run is also sprinkled with six successful Uefa Cup ties, only one of which, in Bremen, resulted in a loss over the 90 minutes.

Anyway - that done, and us being Bears, it’s now time to get stuck the fuck in to the moaning!

I know we’re desperate to get away from any sectarian stains on our club’s name but did we really have to celebrate the Pope’s birthday by gifting them a fucking winner in Injury time … by playing Steven Whittaker AT ALL???!!

Nah. Only joking, Sorry Stevie. Yer goal in Lisbon should entitle ye to a full wage plus bonuses from Rangers for the rest of your natural life. But, sorry mate - yer still far too ponderous far too often. It’s unfair to single you out for blame for the winning goal or the losing result. It was, of course, the recently re-deified Waldo who picked you for tonight’s game and, the defence of defences was already understandably creaking given we’d just lost our Player of the Year to a red card and our goalie to an injury.

What I’m hoping and what I’m actually believing will happen is that the likes of Whittaker, Darcheville, Dailly, Davis - even Alexander - will all learn enough from tonight to help us get that point we need on our next trip to the Evil East End. Had we been destroyed by Celtic in the way their first half tidal wave threatened to, then there’d be nowt for these derby debutants to learn other than maybe we’re pisher than we thought we were. But the way we handled that tim tsunami - never caving except to a sensational, almost unsaveable strike from well outside our area - and the way we adapted to claw our way back onto the score-sheet and almost take a point from the game with just ten men on the pitch, kept it all more than close enough for our newer players to realise exactly where and when to apply a little mental fine-tuning when next away to the horrible hoops.

Carlos Cuellar needed no such learning curve. He’s already good enough anyway and he’ll noh be playing in the next trip to paralice. His sending off is a fucking gut-heaving blow for us a week on Sunday but, tonight, it was well worth the risk. Nakamura was having a good game - he’d already shot from distance with success and he was cutting in to shoot for about half an hour before he finally let loose so McGregor and Cuellar had plenty time to realise what was coming. Allan’s foot injury was already impeding his mobility so Carlos had to cover the far post area. When the shot came in, our Spanish hero realised it was going in if he didnae play a wee bit of basketball on the line.

When Allan then saved the penalty and we had twenty minutes to hold on for a league-winning point, Carlos’ decision looked a sound one. In the end, it didn’t work out but - hey - ye win a lot, ye lose one.

I can’t be as phlegmatic, however, as I discover there’s been more suspensions for Rangers players who were NOT playing in blue at Parkhead for the first time. The footage still makes it unclear what happened at the end, on the final whistle, but we’ve now lost Davie Weir to suspension for our next league game - back at the piggery - after an incident sparked by either Barry Ferguson or Stephen McManus. If Bazza is to blame for this devestating blow then questions have to be asked about our temperament. From the hazy “close-up” Setnata showed, Ferguson takes umbridge at what McManus says or does to him on the full-time whistle - but whether Barry is equally guilty is not clear. What is PATENTLY clear is both that Barry could have walked away before the incident escalated to the point where Davie Weir got suspended and that his performance for the previous 95 minutes was at best average, at worst shit.

Maybe the tactics didnae suit Bazza - maybe I’m being overly harsh on his performance but, as per Lisbon, we seemed to get a good ten minutes out of him and then, at the end, he gets himself in a situation where he could cost us a vital game by being unnecessarily booked himself or responding to incitement in a way which gets his team-mate suspended for the following OF game.

Look, I’ll wait and see what comes out in the press tomorrow, sift through the shite for the facts before I go off on one at our captain simply coz my team got beat. I’ll need to know exactly what went on before I decide on Barry’s culpability. Fuck, by this time tomorrow I could be demanding to know why Barry didn’t just floor McManus!! After all, if Davie Weir gets involved it must have been serious incitement!

However, if we were simply running about like spoiled weans spitting oot the dummy - in short, if we were behaving like Celtic after so many of their recent derby defeats - I’ll be fucking raging with our captain. Furthermore, if I discover he’s risked our SPL title chances by getting hismelf uneccesarily suspended I’ll be almost as angry with him as I was during the whole PLG affair…

(Shut it, Eck. Calm. Yer about to do exactly what ye’ve just said Barry shouldn’t have …)

But he’s still the best player we’ve got - by a mile - and he’s still given us far more on the field than he’s ever taken away.

Let’s just see what the news is and deal with it. God knows there’ll be enough “Are rangers cracking up??!!” headlines without me adding to them.

As it stands we just draught Dailly and Papac into centre-half with perhaps Stevie Smith returning or Whittaker and Broadfoot playing full-backs. Braodfoot, of course, is a centre half so maybe have a three man central defence with Smith and Whittaker as full-backs. Fuck me - that’s bad. Get Thomson and Hemdani across the front of them.

In short, the bedrock on which our team’s success has been built this season will not be available for the next game.

Or perhaps it’s time for Barry Ferguson to step up once again and prove the point I made earlier in the campaign; that everything in our team - including the defence - only works so well because it orbits around our real core of strength, our midfield. And our midfield is only good enough when it’s orbiting around that shining star Barry Ferguson.

Or maybe, on tonight’s evidence, we’ll just go for their fucking jugular next time. We really shouldn’t have to defend that much if we attack like we can because - Jesus H! - how fucking BAD is that Celtic defence??!! Our attack was SHIT tonight and even then we scored one and could have had a few more if we’d been a bit more lively. In short, Celtic’s best policy of defence is attack and, seeing as we only need a point at Parkhead to wrap up the title, we should go all-out attack a week on Sunday. Novo, Darcheville and Cousin start. Fuck it - throw Boydey on too! If we lose three goals we can certainly score three.

Man. At the start of the second half, just as the Novo effect was beginning to kick in, we played a couple of truly dreadful balls into their box. There wasn’t a Rangers player within a small central european Duchy of either of these passes and still McManus and Caldwell almost contrived to put it into their own net or play in another one of our strikers with a “back-pass”. They are there for the taking and I think tonight will help us realise that.

If not, we is fucked!

I like how I’m only right when predicting the shit results,BTW!

I said tonight would be like Werder Bremen away. It was. We suffered a deluge of pressure and we lost by one goal

I said tonight would become like a Champions League home game for Celtic - it was.

Like they did to Milan, Shakthar and everyone else, they duly provided a late-late winner when all seemed lost. Even after that Hesselink goal you wondered if we might snatch an even more devestating equaliser, as the big Dutch thug clumsily man-handled Cousin in their box. But it wasn’t a foul, the final whistle went and the time it took Alan McGregor to decide if he could carry on or not, was the time which came back to haunt us.

Absolutely no complaints from me - all our own fault - but I want to know what Barry was complaining about and if he will be willing to make up for it a week on Sunday. If so we can win 3-0. If not - we’re gonane need a helluva performance from our other ten to get that point.

Allan McGregor almost had his third Goram moment of the season. In fact Allan did his bit, with an amazing penalty save from McDonald which raised all our hopes of another magical backs-to-the-wall triumph. But he needed his team-mates to hold on, to secure the point, for that save to have truly immortal resonances.

Maybe next time, Al - eh?!

It was St Johnstone who confirmed, 18 months ago, that the PLG reign had entered crisis point. Guess who we’re playing on Sunday, in another cup … and this time it’s not even at Ibrox.

NOW’s the time for character, Gers. When you’ve gone past the point of European progress anybody ever expected from you this season you’re into bonus territory. It’s miraculous wonders we’ve worked in that continental arena - and achieved with billions of joules of energy. But it’s when yer in the kind of territory where ye can only make an arse of yerself that the real cojones are found … or found lacking.

Wee Nacho came onto a bleak situation tonight and showed how easily it can be turned round. What an attitude, what a fighter - what a fucking goal from the wee man - AGAIN! Let his team-mates follow his example and take our anger out on St Johnstone this weekend and leave more than a little bit of ire in the tank for Fiorentina’s visit. THEN, then - then we get the chance to redress the balance and correct tonight’s mistakes.

Carlos Cuellar can have the games of his life in the next two fixtures, knowing he can rest up the following weekend … while the rest of us get STUCK RIGHT BACK INTO IT!

Fucking bring it on. No - I said no - I said NO surrender!

Ooooh yeah! I love it when it gets all staunch, I do …

About this entry

You’re currently reading “STAND UP FOR THE TEDDY BEARS! (Tic … 2 GERS … 1),” an entry on FatEck.co.uk

Published:
04.16.08 / 10pm
Category:
News