When Rangers lost at Easter Road on Sunday week, to call the reaction a meltdown was putting it mildly.
Many fans turned on players, on each other, and suddenly Rangers were terrible and all hell had broken loose.
After one league defeat, a great number of supporters decided the team was awful, and a great number of the players simply were not good enough.
And yet, it is worth noting the one thing everyone often forgets is just how far this outstanding Rangers team, assembled in barely two month, has exceeded expectations.
Before the season started, no matter who the team had consisted of, if Rangers fans had been offered two defeats and 17 wins of (obviously) 19 matches in total, to suggest supporters would have bitten arms then shoulders off for that would be the understatement of the year.
But the fact that this XI is essentially a completely new team, comprising of players who mostly had never played together before competitively when Rangers travelled to Easter Road and demolished Hibs 6-2, promotes the belief that two defeats all season (to an excellent St Johnstone side, criminally underestimated, and a close thing to an in-form Hibs) is a stunning achievement.
There is an element of ‘spoiled’ about some fans who, admittedly buoyed by the stunning early season scorelines and form, expected this brand new Mark Warburton team with only one pre-existing starter (Lee Wallace) to keep rolling everyone over with style and panache.
I always warned readers and fellow fans that the form was not sustainable – these are people, not machines, and they will not play like Barcelona every match. And indeed, it does seem that Rangers have been through a bit of a lull over the past month or so. Guess what? To come out of a lull with 7 wins (it probably started in Dumbarton) and two losses (to aforementioned strong teams) remains excellent and better than we could have dreamed of.
All fans pray for those kind of results when their team is playing badly.
But I reiterate – this is a brand spanking new XI, playing their first season as a unit. McKay was barely part of the McCoist Rangers, Miller has been in and out, and Shiels too is a sub.
That these players have suffered just two losses and won the rest is outstanding – any supporter demanding more is just being unreasonable.