When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please — never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass. — Peter Wimbrow.
Ibrox Stadium – Sunday
That was a hard defeat to take. The poem above sums up my feelings, too many players can simply not look the man in the glass and say they gave their best.
There was plenty of positives to take from the match, I felt Jamie Murphy was outstanding again, showing just how big and important player he has become for us in just a short space of time, Bruno Alves was as commanding as I’ve witnessed him, some of our play and manner in which we did at stages, especially in spells in the first half in the attacking sense is something we certainly can build and take confidence from.
The shortcomings were of our own making that is what makes it all the more frustrating, time after time our final pass was best described as lazy, unable to get the ball beyond the first man despite having joy down in wide areas. We simply failed to take any sort of advantage of the extra man after the sending off. Our tempo was far to slow, simply allowing the opposition to get back behind the ball on numbers, this has been an all to familiar theme at Ibrox this year, Sunday was no different.
The defending, well the less said about that the better, it was the kind of defending that would get you dropped from the school team never mind one looking to apply pressure at the top of table.
I expected more and better from many of our players, the game was there for the taking, we contrived to throw it away, adding to our already dreadful home form this season. It has happened too often now to be called a blip, questions will now rightly or wrongly be asked of the mentally of some squad members.
We will dust ourselves off and go again, the great thing about football is you get a chance to put it right in relatively quick time. The players must now believe they can seriously hurt Celtic in the Scottish Cup Semi final, I have seen enough to think we can and will emerge victorious in that match. If truth be told the Scottish Cup always did serve as our biggest chance of capturing silverware this season. It is still very much all to play for.
It is always all about The Rangers, never forget that. It’s always about what we do, and how we execute it that counts.
Maybe then some players can look in the glass for more than just doing their hair.