IN examining the ongoing travails of Rangers it is hard to escape the conclusion that the club’s own history is getting in the way of re-evaluating where it now stands in the grand scheme of things.
At Ibrox and the training ground at Milngavie there remain the trappings of greatness, but the 27 points that separate them from Celtic tell a different story.
When Celtic decided their experiment with a project manager had failed last year, in spite of Ronny Deila having won back-to-back Premiership titles, they had the wherewithal and clout to bring in a manager who had been operating at the very top of the English game and the impact has been obvious.
Rangers’ punt on a manager who had been admittedly controversially discarded by English Championship club Brentford having now failed, for whatever reason, what can they possibly offer a major name in the sport to take the reputational risk that is inevitably associated with the minute coverage of their every word and action that comes with life as manager of one of Glasgow’s big clubs?
Yet the attitude that prevails at Ibrox was exposed when Philippe Senderos, the Swiss international who has been to three World Cups and a European Championships with his international side as well as playing in Milan, London, Liverpool, looked ahead to today’s match against Morton.
Speaking prior to Mark Warburton's departure, the vastly experienced 31-year-old, claimed he was not being disrespectful when saying of the prospect of facing the Championship side: “We don't really look at the opposition that much. This is not unusual, you concentrate on yourself because we know if we do what we are capable of doing we beat most of the teams in this league. That's why I am saying we don't really look at the opposition that much – and the cup is the same. We have more quality than most of the teams. When we play Celtic, obviously we’re going to look at [them] more than we look at other teams. That's no disrespect to anyone in the league, that's just normal.”
But how does that compare with the current reality? Looking ahead to the weekend’s Scottish Cup ties, Rangers’ players and supporters knew they were engaging in their last opportunity to play a part in denying Celtic a clean sweep of domestic honours, but Senderos could also speak with some authority on the greater achievement that their rivals are pursuing, that of going through a domestic campaign unbeaten.
He was on Arsenal’s books in their 'Invincibles' season and he is now watching closely as Celtic bid not only to match that, but to win both major domestic cups along the way.
He knows it will become harder for their rivals as the season progresses, but is also aware that they are demonstrating what can happen when momentum is generated.
“It’s very difficult in any league,” he said. “You have added pressure because people think about it or talk about it, but I think as a team the [Arsenal] team was concentrated on doing the job every single weekend and not really thinking about the end of the season or the end result. That team was on such a run that anything they were coming up against they had answers for. You knew you could come back if you were 2-0 down and get a result.
"I think that belief, that’s what you need to build up in every single team to have the belief we could overcome any bad situation. Here [at Rangers] we might say a draw at home and a bad result away is catastrophic and we know the expectation is massive.
“We want to do the right thing but that’s why we need to have the belief that we can overcome this type of situation and do better in the next game and hopefully get everyone on our side - the crowd, and all the elements - and hopefully go on a big run.”
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