“It’s puts him [McDowall] and me in a
bit of a position because you know you’ve done well enough to play the next
week but you might not play. So I guess you just need to go out and score a
hat-trick every game to try to keep yourself in the team.”
It is fair to say young Fraser
Aird has done little to endear himself to Rangers fans in recent weeks.
The above quote relates, of
course, to his response to his manager’s claims that Sandy Easdale and Derek
Llambias have ordered him to select all five Newcastle loanees, when available
(something Llambias denies).
Aird went onto say:
“If it’s fair or not it’s not really for me
to comment just means that the boys who aren’t in the team are going to have to
work their socks off to get into the team and take their chance when they get
it. I’ve just heard those comments there, saying obviously that they have to
play, it’s kind of just hit me in the last five seconds. I don’t know what it’s
going to be like, ask me in a few weeks and I might tell you something different.”
If we are being utterly blunt,
Aird is, to an extent, correct. No player should simply start a match by
default leaving literally only six slots up for grabs for the rest of the team.
But the problem is that he has, in being correct, produced hypocrisy upon
himself and the rest of the existing squad.
Aird has stated (indirectly)
categorically that no one should just start by default without earning it, yet
here we are watching Richard Foster, Lee McCulloch, Nicky Law and a certain
Fraser Aird, to name but four, who are producing absolutely nothing on the
pitch yet managing to retain their place by default.
In short, Aird has shown himself
to be selfish, immature, and hypocritical. His form has been completely
diabolical for a long time now. Admittedly his saving grace is a refusal to
hide on the pitch – he does try, but he produces nothing of any note. His
entire repertoire is to tap the ball past a defender and hope he can outpace
him by sprinting. It works one in 10 times. He cannot produce a set-piece
delivery to save himself yet he seems to be on corners more often than not, and
do not get me started on his constant cutting in.
So if Aird is whining about
players not deserving to start by default, he had better make sure he has a
case. And he does not.
There were also his idiotic
comments last month going into the Hearts match that Rangers had a better
squad.
“They are flying right now and scoring
a lot of goals, but I still think that we have a better squad than them and
better individual players but we need to go out and prove that.”
Any player who plays for a side
performing as poorly as Rangers are right now in comparison with Hearts’
excellent season really does not have a pedestal to stand on with a statement
like that.
He further added:
“They haven’t really had a bad spell
but hopefully we can change that and see where it goes from there. I wouldn’t
say this game on Friday will decide the league. Hopefully we can win and put a
lot pressure on them. We were unlucky against them when we played them at home,
when they scored with the last kick of the ball, pretty much.”
Really, Fraser? Unlucky? Beaten
by the better team is ‘unlucky’?
Aird sums up what is actually
wrong with Rangers’ squad right now. Unwilling to take responsibility for their
own failings, expecting to start matches by default, and believing they should
not be contested or questioned.
McDowall will be starting Streete
(defender), Bigiramana (midfield) and Vuckic (AM) on Sunday, with Mbubu and Ferguson out through
injury, and yet you can guarantee wasters like Foster, McCulloch and Aird will
still be out there along with them.
The rot at Ibrox is not isolated
to the boardroom.