Rangers don’t just need quality, they need Rangers men again | OneFootball

With the recent(ish) exits of Ryan Jack, Allan McGregor, Scott Arfield, Steven Davis and the passing of Jimmy Bell, there’s a really massive Rangers problem in Govan, and it’s not helping the clear malaise in the club and the squad:

There are basically absolutely no Rangers men in the entire organisation now.

Unless you include Alex Rae and Colin Stewart, which is rather reaching a tad, there is basically no one dyed-in-the-wool as a Rangers man who has been at the club for years, knows what it’s all about and has been a loyal servant.

The squad doesn’t have a single really proper Rangers man/fan in it, with the closest thing we have being Ross McCausland – and he’s still pretty green around the edges and in no way entrenched in the club the way the likes of Davis and McGregor are and were.

Now, we know the woke masses are foaming in rage reading this saying ‘it diznae matter if they’re a Ranjurs man ffs, as loan’ as we wun, aye?’.

Well, that’s just it – we’re not winning, are we, and we’re adding Milan kids these days now as well.

There can be little coincidence the best Rangers teams always had a massive Rangers core in them, be it in the coaching, the management or the squad.

Walter had a bunch of Rangers fans – Boyd, Ferguson, Miller, Davis, and Naismith to name just five.

McLeish very much built around Barry, and had a few others like Boab Malcolm and Allan Hutton, and himself is a Rangers man.

Even Dick knew the importance of Rangers’ identity and made Barry prominent then captain very quickly indeed. He added Derek McInnes to the Rangers core.

Steven Gerrard too got it quickly, bringing in three stormtrooping Gers men in Arfield, Davis and McGregor, and heavily used boyhood fan Ryan Jack.

Now?

Zero. Zip. A few youth kids and at a stretch McCausland, but there is just no core Rangers identity in the squad or much in the management either, and we can’t help but wonder how much that impacts the results.

The less ‘Rangers’ the club has in it, seems to correlate to the results, and while we’d never dismiss a player who isn’t a Rangers man, to saturate the club with all the mercenaries we have done over the years does seem to have a major impact on the work ethic and quality on the pitch.

It’s really simple – the hardest working players will be fans, the ones who give other players a bollocking if they’re not putting in the shift.

There’s no coincidence that arguably the hardest-working Rangers player these days is McCausland, even if, sadly, he just isn’t that good.

Rangers need both quality, and Rangers identity.

Right now both are in desperately short supply.