The fear factor of Scottish football

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The fear factor of Scottish football


If you listen carefully, very carefully, the shifting of the landscape can just about be heard starting in the distance.

The most obvious sound of such movement and the fear it’s causing is the amount of attacks on Rangers site fans of other teams are said to be making right now. One large forum was outright hacked and taken down, while your very own Ibrox Noise has apparently been sullied by the fans of various teams in green. We say ‘apparently’ because we honestly couldn’t care less what they have to say about us, and indeed thrive on the fact they are spending time obsessing about the Rangers and yer Ibrox Noise.

However, added to a week where a Rangers man was made Scotland manager again and Rangers put five past Hamilton to add to the six we rattled beyond Ayr’s goal and the fact Celtic dropped yet more points at Parkhead has led to something very interesting indeed;

The smallest the gap (in every sense) between Celtic and Rangers has been since 2011 when Steven Naismith’s injury that October derailed a 15 point lead for Ally McCoist’s men and saw Neil Lennon’s side stride past as we fell into admin the following February.

The restoration of Our Rangers has never looked more real than it does right now – we know there’s a long way to go, and there’s plenty of work to do.

But the fact is Celtic have been mince this season, and with a 9 point gap the difference between the two and Rangers pinging the goals in for fun right now, there’s something happening, no?

Celtic might try to make excuses and claim ‘it wiz only Hamultin’ – true, but pretty sure St Johnstone are fourth from bottom too and in horrific form. Was it just a blip them drawing? A blip them losing to Kilmarnock? A blip us taking a point from Parkhead again? A blip Hibs getting a draw?

In fact, who cares! The numbers speak for themselves and with us nearly at the end of February the gap is reducing, not increasing.

Rangers do still have much work to do, and we all know how much. But there are now the first real tangible signs that this Celtic can be caught, that Rangers are going in the right direction.

It’s been a long time since it felt like Rangers could crush the diddy teams in the SPL and elsewhere in Scottish football. That’s 11 goals in two matches, and this time it ain’t v Albion Rovers and Airdrie. This was on the patch of a side who beat Rangers at Ibrox.

Most pleasing of all was Graeme Murty’s post-match disgust at the loss of goals. The defence is not completely delivering right now, and both full backs are being caught out of position frequently, not to mention the increasingly hapless Wes Foderingham.

But the fact we delivered 5 at the other end is a sure sign of something clicking.

We’ve a long way to go, but we are clearly going in the right direction.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Great article. Spot on. We are definitely starting to see the “blue shoots”. It’s beginning to come together nicely.

    But the centre of defence continues to be a worry. There has to be better decision making T the back. As nice as it is to try to olY out of the bsck, sometimes it require a clearance. We must stop giving away cheap goals. We gave away two stupid goals today by very poor defending. One was from two missed tackles//clearance. The other from a poor clearance to the centre of pllay. Clearances should be up the line or battered well into the opposition half. They should NEVER be into midfield where it can be won by the opposition and put them on the from foot like it did today

    If we can remove this sloppiness then we’re in good shape. Another noticeable issue today with the CBS was the distance between them. They didn’t play as a pairing. Time to maybe bring Bruno back in alongside Martin

  2. Great article and spot on again! Graeme Murty is in the process of building an excellent Rangers team and squad, he is an astute and very articulate student of the game and is making the job his own week by week despite the efforts of the green media informing us at ever opportunity that he's not up to it and the next game is his make or break game! It's bad enough having to listen to Andy Walker's inane and clearly anti Rangers co commentary but must we put up with Derek Ferguson's uninformed garbage re Murty as well! Finally, thank you D. McInnes for not attending the interview!

  3. You can almost taste it..The FEAR of being caught by the Rangers is rippling through them now..

    Rangers have a couple of defensive issues to iron out, but all in all it’s a huge statement the last two games. The Buffalo & Windass are on fire along with Murphy now finding his form & fitness…

    So many options in the squad now fighting for a place in the Team but it’s unity and no egos! Plenty Gers had written Murty & the Team off after the Ibrox loss to Hamilton, but they’ve not QUIT yet. So we shouldn’t…

    Ibrox Noise you forgot the humping to Hearts btw 😉 We beat Hearts in midweek and it just keeps the pressure on that lot. No record gap this year and that’s down to Murty and the lads 🔴⚪️🔵

  4. Not enough has been made of this so I've written it in capitals. RANGERS HAVE THE BEST AWAY FORM IN THE LEAGUE THIS SEASON…!!!

    Makes you wonder what can be achieved if we sort out our home form…is it nerves or is it a tweak to the system that's required for home games? Personally I think we need 4-4-2 at home and 4-5-1 away (like Walter did in his 2nd spell)

  5. Either we rare better than they give us credit for, or they are nowhere near as good as they think they are. 9 points is an embarrassing gap for them considering the difference in our fortunes over the last few years!

  6. Delighted with The Way The Club is Now Being Run.
    Delighted with The Direction we are going In.
    Delighted with Murty & Allan
    😃👍

    #TheGapIsClosing
    #TheGreenHaveTheFear
    #TheFutureIsRedWhiteAndBlue
    💙

  7. Calm down people we are definitely going forward but there is still a long way to go. Windass and tav contracts are great news that windass will net us a fortune believe me. Might take another 2year but I'm positive we will stop they bastards. Looking better but not there yet

    • Good point shug.IN is getting carried away as usual. Can I just remind everyone what the score was when we played St Johnstone at home,And what was the score when we played Killie?Going in the right direction but still miles away!!

  8. Wow, 2 wins and 6 goals against Ayr and Hamilton (who did score 3 goals against us!!) and its time to break out the champagne?!.
    Have you seen our home record this season?!, yeah, teams must be really worried about playing us because we have beaten the bottom of the league and Scottish League One opposition.
    I am pleased of the 3 points and getting into the next round of the cup, but I am realistic that we are far from being anywhere near challenging for the league.
    We are in a group of teams in the league who are more than capable of beating each other, we are not above their level yet! So to say other teams will "fear" us, just because we beat average/poor opposition is unrealistic.

    • We’re are in a dam site better position than we would’ve been if they hadn’t best Hamilton or Ayr…Home form is shite no getting away from that fact. That does need fixing asap to have any chance that’s a given.

      What’s to say we couldn’t win it Jimbo though? You telling me things haven’t improved since Murty took over and added his loan signings?

      We went from struggling to score last season to free scoring almost at this point in time. Then again always somebody willing to piss on someone’s parade..

      I’ll go back to negative vibes now…

  9. I’ve seen nothin bar negative reports from every scotttish press, and all the ex Celtic pundits crawling out to have a pop for us conceding 3 goals. Sounds like there a bit upset over how we are doing this season

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