A TASTE OF OUR OWN (Hibees … 0 GERS …0)

Well, I don’t know about you, troops but I was DISGUSTED with Hibernian today. Sitting behind the ball, happy to hit on the break, making aboslutely no attempt to gain anything other than a 0-0 draw - and they were playing at home too! What kind of way is that to play the game? I ask you - where is their integrity, their sporting ethics??!! That’s not football - that’s ANTI-FOOTBALL!!! The noble, valiant, expansive Rangers didn’t drop two points today - we were cheated. CHEATED, I tell you, by an opponent who just refused to play the game: Hibs were ungentlemanly, underhand, unscrupulous …and, they were the spitting image of us in Europe! Oh yeah … right enough … wait a minute …

HIbs defended well, did what they could with what they have at their disposal. Not losing at home to the Old Firm is all they need to do. Today they manged it by doing what we did to Panathinaikos, Fiorentina, Sporting Lisbon and Barce-fekin-lona: Cut your losses and go for the pragmatic way through. Hats off to the Hibees and it’s hands up from all of Beardom, with our cards laid out on the table: We weren’t good enough today. End of.

The Embra Erin are trying with all their might to qualify for the qualifiers of a comeptition, the final of which we will compete in a week on Wednesday. Good on them for watching how we got there. We shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve taken faith from the fact they’ve done at Ibrox this season what those aforementioned European stalwarts could not. Hibs won at Ibrox, albeit under different management. Rangers, this afternoon, have only ourselves to blame.

But no-one will be blaming us.

That October Hibs win at Ibrox came in the immediate wake of arguably our greatest ever performance on the continent, our 3-0 triumph in Lyon. So when, seven months later, we then go and achieve one of our greatest ever MOMENTS on the continent, with yet another historic performance, a trip to EASTER ROAD should be seen in suitably worrying light. That we didn’t lose, and that we improved as the game went on instead of tiring, is admirable and encouraging. Rangers far from disgraced themsleves today.

We’re all just seriously pissed off that, in the process of this very human result, Celtic’s chances of Three-In-A-Row - an inhuman prospect - have been dealt a serious boost. We’re angry at life, not Rangers.

Celtic won yesterday to go eight points clear, while we had four games in hand. We had to play three of those games before Celtic next kicked a ball. No-one’s complaining, no-one’s angry at Rangers - everyone’s just thinking “what a bugger”. Especially as Zenit St Petersburg have nothing to do between now and Manchester. This is the price of such success - and I wouldn’t want it any other way. So, why are we angry at life? Because: If we drop more points to Motherwell on Wednesday, Celtic can win the league by winning their next two games, their last two games. If we also lose to Dundee United next Saturday, Celtic could be effective champions this time next week. We’d have to win all our remaining SPL games by wide margins - almost impossible with so much on our plate.

One more for you: If we lose both of our last two home games of the season, Celtic will be outight champions with a home win over Hibs next Sunday. I happen to think the other top-six teams only have one good result against the Old Firm left in their respective tanks. That Hibs got theirs today means Celtic will destroy them next weekend. That Motherwell didn’t get theirs yesterday means we’re gonnae have two brutal games against them. That Dundee United lost at Pittodrie yesterday means, YET AGAIN, United will be unbelievably difficult opponents at Ibrox next Saturday.

I based our much-improved chances of winning the SPL this season as heavily on Walter Smith’s return as Celtic’s loss of Neil Lennon. We wanted Walter back, I was told, because we needed to win the league - the whole European thing wasn’t a consideration right now, apparently. Lennon was slowing down as a player, yes, but his dressing room and training ground attitude is what always got Celtic through, even more than just his on-field ability. Well, Lennon is back with that attitude and Walter hasn’t actually managed to shake off that pesky European success which Paul Le Guen seemed to be negligently saddling us with.

Oh yes, I allow myself to do the “ifs and buts” thing if it’s doom-laden scenarios. It’s okay to hypothesise on disasters. That’s not fate-tempting - that’s sobering and grounding. Just like today’s result at Easter Road.

So, now that we’ve done that sobering, grounding thing - so crucial too for face-saving purposes when so many hysterical hoopies want to paint us presumptious about four trophies coming our way, so as to make our failure to secure any more silverware seem “disastrous” - let’s happily refocus on the fact that, even from where we are now, only failure to win the Scottish Cup would count as even coming up short, far less any sort of catastrophe. Even then, with Queen of the South being our fourth game in seven days, and us being the Dumfries side’s first game in a month, the hubris potential would be negligible.

Achieving what we have in 2007/2008, from being twelve points behind first place at the end of last season, means only today’s result was dissapointing. Win one more of our five remaining league fixture and we’re guaranteed to imporve on last season’s SPL standing. Throw into that mix three cup final appearances and our first piece eof silver in 3 years along with our first Euro final in 36 and - hey - let’s all laugh at my ominous portenting.

The converese of the negativity is as follows: We have no more foreign trips to make. The team will play only in Britain til the end of the season. There will be no more 5am touchdowns in Glasgow. If Florence was a factor in today’s performance then, after six days in Scotland, we’ll be fresh as daisies for Wednesday. Win our two remaining home games and, by next Sunday, Celtic could go out to face Hibs knowing we’re one point behind them and with yet more games in hand. They then HAVE to win or hand US the title.

If Florence WAS a negative factor today then we began to overcome it quickly enough. I felt we’d most likely tire towards the end but, in fact, we improved. Our second half diplay was pretty much an onslaught. Even if it was an onsluaght with no sharp tip, no prescient penetration. It looks as though the fatigue can obviously be overcome - it’s just a question of how effectively. These days, when we score goals - ala three in two games at Parkhead - we don’t win. When we win, we score few goals, ala beating Fiorentina and St Johnstone on penalties with no goals in normal time and only one in extra time. To complete the conundrum, we seem less likely to score when playing two up front.

After Thursday’s implosion, Cousin owed us so much today but lacked the guile or edge a truly psyched-up player would possess in such a situation. Barry Ferguson had a tame shot from four yards when he should have squared to Nacho. Sport’s Writers’ Player of the Year Carlos Cuellar missed a couple of chances with his imposing head but, really, he’s not about scoring goals. The defence - as always - did its job and did it with some ease. It does, however, seem to genuinely trouble us when we’re asked to do the attacking, when, quite simply, the European roles are reversed on us and we have to come out. What Hibs have learned from us I hope we can use as a reminder of what we do to Zenit St Petersburg - they can’t run through you if you don’t offer them any gaps.

Cousin’s “goal” was definitely offside. A Dean Shiels attack was circumvented by an incorrect offisde flag so that’s last week’s Scott McDonald opener equalled out straight away - one to shut up all you conspiracists, of all hues.

No-one with any sense expected this SPL title-race to be as easy as, mostly surrendering Celtic fans and gutter journos claimed it to be only three weeks ago. I’ve said from the beginning of the season that any club winning three-in-a-row in Scotland has usually done so with a late, against-the-odds rally, in spectacular style and by the skin of their teeth. Celtic falling behind us in the SPL a few months ago, was always no more than a perfect opening act of a phoenix-from-Angela’s-ashes drama as far as I was concerned. Celtic, for me, have every bit as much chance of 3IAR as Rangers have of becoming champions of Scotland for a 52nd time. Joint evens favourites.

Already I’m getting phonecalls and texts and emails about spare tickets for Manchester. Everywhere I go people are talking about hiring buses and getting down there “just for the atmosphere”. Already I’ve seen and heard a few unbelievably hypocritical jibes from Celtic fans regarding such sudden displays of retrospective loyalty. Apparently the 100,000 who went to Seville were all season-ticket holders at 60,000-capacity Parkhead. Their “show of faith” is our “sham of part-timers” apparently. Well, yeah, I must admit I’m kinda pissed-off about the M6 being clogged with even the Ibrox regulars who were outside the main doors protesting about Alex McLeish when he was in the midst of getting us into the last-16 of the champions League - and equally laudable if less spectacular achievement than reaching the UEFA Cup final - never mind the extra 100,000 who haven’t been to an SPL game for ten years but will be hitting the M74 at 8am a week on Wednesday. But then, I’m like that. It’s always quality rather than quantity which counts for me. As long as the City of Manchester Stadium is full of screaming Bears, I couldn’t care less how many are in Canal Street and the city squares of Lancashire. And as long as Rangers keep improving and showing a willingness to give it everything they have, I’ll be satisfied irrespective how many tin pots it earns our trophy cabinet.

But, like the cups, like the Manchester calcualtor - yer only human if ye want your club to have the biggest tally. Victories and trophies might not always be the true judgement of a team’s quality, of the players’ achievement - but they’re certainly what you remember. And they’re certainly what you enjoy. They’re nice. They’re lovely and, for Rangers, they’re vital.

Deep breaths. Soak it up. Two points dropped but also one gained. Everyone dig deep and let’s scare the living shit out of Motherwell this Wednesday night. If ye don’t roar the Gers tae victory against the Steelmen at Ibrox, ye don’t deserve a ticket for the game against the bionic men at Manchester.

Sod the quality of the football, or the inevitability of fatigue - just give us all four trophies. You have to fight for yer right to party - and I want to go to Manchester knowing my team are also on the point of clinching the SPL title. Just coz ye get nothing for free doesnae mean ye can’t still have it ALL.

Hibs gave us a tatse of our own medicine today - but such medicine makes ye better, so we should never choke on it.

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Published:
05.04.08 / 5pm
Category:
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