Glasgow Rangers Football Club never has, and never will be a step down for any football player from Aberdeen, Nor will it ever be the Status Quo. Don’t let the league positions of both clubs this season and last fool you.There’s a favourable trend within the Scottish media which continues to attack and belittle the great institution that is Rangers F.C, something which has grown arms and legs within the last 5 and a half years as we have climbed our way back up from League 2 into the Premier League once again. Why would McInnes want to leave a club who currently sit 2nd in the league to join one which is 3rd seems to be the million dollar question which these so-called experts cannot figure out the real answer why. To some it beggars belief why McInnes would even consider it let alone follow it through. They also argue that Aberdeen are so far behind Celtic, it would be a repeat exercise for McInnes to join Rangers to lead them into 2nd place to again languish so far behind Celtic so why even bother moving at all?
Here’s the reason why folks.
Rangers are the ONLY club capable of not only catching Celtic, but overcoming them once again as the dominant force in Scottish football. This is what the rest of Scottish football are fearing. Aberdeen under McInnes have had free reign at being title contenders. No Hibs, Hearts, Dundee Utd or Rangers to contend with for most of the last 5 years has allowed that to materialise. It is no coincidence that it took Rangers being demoted from the top league for them to become consistent challengers and also for Celtic to achieve 6 titles in a row. Football can change within a few months, which is why all the talk of Celtic being lightyears ahead of Rangers and already guaranteed of 10 in a row are well wide of the mark. With virtually the same squad of players, Celtic struggled to a 2-0 victory over Lowland League side East Kilbride in the Scottish cup and lost a champions league qualifier to Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar within the last 18 months. Say what you want about finances and Champions League money but money does not always buy and guarantee success.
Some of the finest footballers this country has ever seen have worn the light blue colours of Rangers. In European and World terms, the footballing name Rangers stands out as far superior to Aberdeen. If McInnes decides to swap Pittodrie for Ibrox the dynamics change for him tenfold in terms of calibre of players he can attract and work with, this is a fact, despite the concerns over how much money the Rangers board may or may not have. The landscape in Scottish football and at Ibrox, in particular, is different now from the glory days of Gascoigne, Laudrup and co, I think most of the Rangers support accept and understand that. That being said, the lure of signing for the most successful Scottish club still outweighs that of anyone outside the Old Firm, no question.
Spare me the chat about “But they only signed for Rangers because of EBT’s”. It’s nonsense. Brian Laudrup was signed in 1994 for the same amount of dosh that Rangers have supposedly just paid for Carlos Pena. Paul Gascoigne was signed a year later at the same cost as Scott Sinclair. Both Gascoigne and Laudrup have arguably been one of, if not the greatest talents their country has ever produced. The fact they decided to sign for Rangers and had great success only adds more prestige to the history of our club. You can’t say the same about Dean Windass, Paul Bernard and Nigel Pepper of Aberdeen fame. Some of the most gifted footballers in Europe have signed for Rangers and endorsed everything about the club. Rino Gattuso and Arthur Numan are two examples of foreign players who played at the highest level yet they will tell you how great their time was with Rangers and what a big club they are. This doesn’t go unnoticed by fans and players back in their homelands. Despite an overdue time in the shadows Rangers remain the big name in Scottish football on foreign shores.
Even when Aberdeen were attempting to stop Rangers during the 90s there was no real threat or ambition that they could be the top dogs in Scotland. Yes, they had several seasons where they were better than Celtic who were toiling, but the reality was back then that Celtic could go and sign your Thom’s, Di Canio’s and Van Hooijdonk’s to challenge Rangers again. In much the same way back then, the support and expectations of Celtic Football club and their support wouldn’t just stand back and accept years and years of failure and 2nd or 3rd best. They needed to challenge due to the expectation levels of their support. If anything, the expectation and drive from the Rangers support now will be more of a factor due to recent circumstances.
The majority of the 50,000 or so that travel along to Ibrox every other Saturday demand success, they have been spoilt with the number of great players that have worn the famous light blue jersey down the years and they have also played a HUGE part in the 9 in a row success, the double and treble campaigns under Alex McLeish and then again under Sir Walter when he came back and STOPPED Celtic winning 10 in a row, because by the way, all this talk of Celtic winning 10 in a row and more was going on back in 2006/07 2007/08 etc by the same experts who wanted to ram it down Rangers supporters throats how poor we were and that the glory days were over. 3 titles in a row under Walter soon put paid to that theory.
Which again brings me to the present campaign.
In season 2005/06 Alex McLeish led Rangers to 3rd place in the league. Paul Le Guen was brought in for the 2006/07 season and was going to be the revelation of Rangers and Scottish football and we all know how that story ended.
My point is, Rangers were in a much worse position then as to what they are now, much worse. And yes you can argue that Celtic are stronger now than they were under Gordon Strachan. There’s absolutely no way that Celtic would have gone the season undefeated however if Rangers had remained in the top flight over the past 5 seasons, it’s not happened before in any of our lifetimes and if it were that easy then logic says they should have went unbeaten in the 4 years that Rangers were away from the league. The fact is they raised their game with Rangers back in the top league, albeit we did not raise our game.
Bring into the equation John Hartson who this week has adamantly said that Celtic do not need a strong Rangers to keep them strong. Do me a favour John. With no Rangers in the league there was NOTHING happening with Celtic. It took for Rangers to return to the Premier League factored in with a Scottish Cup Semi-Final defeat at the hands of, oh wait..Rangers, for the penny to drop at Parkhead that they might not have it their own way anymore.
With a strong Rangers in the league, NOT ABERDEEN, Celtic actually qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League under Strachan. Does Hartson not really believe that had it not been for a strong Rangers team in 2002/03 his Celtic side would have struggled to make it all the way to the Uefa Cup Final in Seville, would they have raised their levels with no Rangers going toe to toe with them every week for the title with De Boer, Arteta and company for competition?