IT’S like they don’t have the first idea of what’s at stake for Rangers this season.
Either that or they couldn’t care less.
Kris Boyd believes every Rangers player should care as much as McGregor
Steven Gerrard, Allan McGregor, Steven Davis and Ryan Jack all get it. I reckon you can say the same for Andy Halliday and Gary McAllister.
In my book, they are hurting because they are doing everything to stop
Celtic winning nine in a row.
But the rest? I look at that
Rangers team and don’t see nearly enough determination to win this league title.
I see players who are failing their manager and supporters.
Andy Halliday was devastated at full time
Gerrard pointed fingers at them after last Wednesday’s defeat to
Kilmarnock at Rugby Park — and he was 100 per cent spot-on.
If anyone in that changing room wasn’t happy with what their gaffer had to say in front of the TV cameras then they need to wake up and realise what’s going on.
Celtic are on the verge of history here.
This isn’t just any title that’s up for grabs, it’s one which means the world to Gers fans.
Yet I look at that team at the moment and genuinely wonder if enough of them even know what it’s all about.
Gerrard is bursting with passion. You can see the emotion in his eyes whenever he speaks and I love that about him.
This is a guy, remember, who went his entire playing career being grilled on Liverpool’s failure to win the title.
I reckon he’d give anything to be part of Jurgen Klopp’s team this season.
Gers boss Steven Gerrard took full responsibility
For everything else he achieved in the game, Gerrard must be sick of the suggestion he wasn’t good enough to lift a championship.
So this is his chance to address that as a manager and write his name into the history books as the man who stopped Celtic’s domination.
You just need to look at the way Gerrard spoke after that defeat to Killie to see how much it means to him.
I saw it, too, looking at Greegsy’s face on his way off the pitch. He was seething.
Davo didn’t get off the bench but I can just picture his anger afterwards. Jack has always struck me as a boy who understands what Rangers is all about.
Halliday has been a supporter, but I’ll take him out of this because he’s hardly played this season. It’s the guys who are there every week, picking up big money for doing nowhere near enough.
Ryan Kent cost £7million. That’s huge money for Gers to be shelling out on someone who has delivered next to nothing in return.
Celtic spent the same amount of cash on Christopher Jullien and he’s scored seven goals to Kent’s six. He’s a centre-back!
Kent failed to impress again
James Forrest has also been slaughtered by his own fans when the stats show he’s scored 16 goals in all competitions and had 19 assists.
Kent has set up just FOUR goals. I’m sorry, but how can that be good enough? How is that justifying your wages?
For me it’s indicative of the Rangers team which is full of players who wander around the club like lottery winners.
Think of it this way. Alfredo Morelos probably has a move in him. He’s got a chance of progressing in his career and stepping up.
But who else could you say that about right now? I can’t think of anyone in that team.
It’s like they have hit the ceiling of their careers and they know it.
There’s no real hunger to be winners and actually do something which will be talked about for years. I hate harking back to my time as a Rangers player, but not long after I joined the club I could have gone to Russia for what would have been monumental money for me personally.
Big Alex McLeish also tried to take me to Birmingham for a lot more than I was on at Ibrox.
But I didn’t want to go. Why? Because I hadn’t won anything.
I’d scored goals and lived out my dream of pulling on the No 9 shirt.
That wasn’t enough. I wanted to lift trophies and titles and be part of a group that could say we achieved something.
I wasn’t the only one who felt that way either. Our team was bursting with boys who were driven to win. It was an obsession. Every single minute of every single day.
I just don’t see that in this current lot. I thought they had it, as everyone did, including Celtic supporters, after that Old Firm win at the end of December.
But that was a false dawn. Rangers, in the three games against Celts so far this season, have been the better team. But that’s not what wins titles.
It’s about a mentality to grind out wins when you are not playing well.
It’s about fighting harder than the guy you are up against and it’s about having pride in the jersey you are wearing and the supporters you are representing.
Gerrard has it, but there aren’t enough people around him who can look themselves in the mirror and say the same.