Being negative about Rangers? Ask Gary Lineker…

In partnership with

Ibrox Noise

·28. Juni 2024

Being negative about Rangers? Ask Gary Lineker…

Ibrox Noise has historically received praise and criticism from our audience and the wider fanbase in equal measure – praise for our honesty, criticism for our perceived negativity.

Now, an incident recently happened in the press involving Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Harry Kane, whereby the ex-England legends were being critical of their national team’s performance v Denmark, and Kane was defending his team.

OneFootball Videos

Kane said of the pair’s views:

“What ex-players or ex-players who are pundits now have got to realise is it is very hard not to listen to it now, especially for some players who are not used to it or some players who are new to the environment. I always feel like they [pundits] have a responsibility – I know they have got to be honest and give their opinion but also, they have a responsibility of being an ex-England player that a lot of players look up to. People do listen to them and people do care what they say. The bottom line is we haven’t won anything as a nation for a long, long time and a lot of these players were part of that as well and they know how tough it is. So it is not digging anyone out. It is just the reality that they do know it is tough to play in these major tournaments, and tough to play for England. I would never disrespect any ex-player. All I would say is, remember what it is like to wear the shirt and that their words are listened to. Some of the lads… I don’t know how many, but we do hear it. We all want to win a major tournament and I am sure they want us to win a major tournament, and being as helpful as they can and building the lads up with confidence would be a much better way of going about it.”

Lineker then replied with this:

“We’ve been critical of England’s performances, as has pretty much every journalist, but you know how it happens. We’ve talked about this a few times before, about journalists not being brave enough to ask their own questions. I guarantee whoever that was was probably critical themselves. They do it a) to stir the pot and b) because they’re too scared to ask a question from their own selves. It puts Harry on the spot. I thought he answered it fine. There was one bit there where he says that we have responsibilities as ex-England players, that we should know better and that we never won anything or words to that effect. Fine, he’s absolutely right. But I will say one thing. The last thing in the world we want to be is downbeat and critical. We want the England team to perform well on the pitch. The best punditry of all is when England play well.”

Now, amid all this, we bring Rangers into the equation.

Just like Lineker, Ibrox Noise has been unapologetically critical of the club and the football, especially since mid-March when the season unravelled so dreadfully.

But just like Lineker it’s not like we want to be criticising our team – the best analysis is when we’re winning, the best content is when we’ve just won the league cup and things are going well, not when we’re unravelling badly and crashing in the Scottish Cup and League.

It’s so so important that honest views are not silenced by the ‘get behind the team ffs’ brigade, because we ARE behind the team.

If we weren’t behind the team, we wouldn’t be critical – we wouldn’t care one iota.

Our criticism is always constructive – we’re not being negative for the sake of it.

But Kane, of course, as a human being, a footballer, like Rangers striker Cyriel Dessers, just wants to feel the love, the backing, the support from his fans.

It does make them play better if they feel like the fans have their backs, but it’s a very delicate balancing act. Should the fans and media groups ‘celebrate’ a poor performance and bad result and just say ‘better luck next time’?

No one is particularly wrong here – Kane is fair enough in wanting to be backed, and the pundits are fair in wanting to call things out honestly if they’re not very good.

There’s no right or wrong in this one – ultimately everyone wants the same thing – success.