A huge wake up call for Rangers

On Sunday Celtic are going to beat Rangers and win the title. That has become inevitable now and despite our defiance in an earlier entry, we have to wake up and smell the coffee. Celtic will win the title, and they will do it on their own patch against us.

It will be horrible. It will be vile. It will be a dark day in Rangers’ history.

But it will, and already has been, the wake up call this sleeping giant has needed to finally fix itself and restore ourselves to our rightful place at the summit of the game north of the border.

Over the past three days it appears Allan McGregor, Scott Arfield, James McArthur and possibly Kyle Bartley will be making their way into Govan, while a new manager is lined up too, with anyone’s guess from Frank de Boer, Steven Gerrard and the latest talk of the terrance in Neil Warnock taking the reins.

Whoever it is, changes are afoot at Ibrox, and it appears to have finally dawned on the powers that be just how close Celtic are to securing not only the title in the (second) most embarrassing fashion to Rangers, but the dreaded 10IAR.

Sure, it would be a tainted triumph – Scotland needs both sides of the Old Firm at full strength. Celtic fans have not enjoyed these titles anywhere near as much as those they won under Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan – because there was no credible Rangers challenge this time around.

But it will still say 10IAR, and the dramatic changes underway at Edmiston Drive are evidence both of the need to sell season tickets (we’re not idiots, we know a lot of this is down to that) and the need to stop Celtic.

Being close to signing two top-class Scottish internationals as well as a Canada equivalent, all of whom are highly experienced at the peak of English football as well as two of them being Rangers fans, is a step back to where we need to be.

There is a hell of a difference between having Wes Foderingham between the sticks and Allan McGregor.

We got Wes from Swindon who were League 1 for chief’s sake. On no level is a Swindon Town goalkeeper good enough for Rangers.

That sums up where we have been the past couple of years, and where Mark Allen is now trying to take us. I am willing to buy into my colleague Robbie’s vision of Allen’s qualities, and where he wants to go in comparison with the minefield of mediocrity we’ve lived in for far too long.

We are trying to sign a much higher calibre of player, players who are properly worthy of the shirt – full internationals with tonnes of EPL or SPL or at worst EC experience.

The kind of quality we used to sign.

Because Celtic beating us to win the SPL on Sunday is to be the low point since promotion – the moment we woke the hell up and truly realised our squad just isn’t good enough, that our manager is likewise.

We will have to take this one on the chin. And fix ourselves pronto because seven years of either no Rangers or a weak one is simply too much to bear.

NB: if we manage the impossible and win on Sunday, it only changes the mood slightly. Big changes are still critical.

NNB: A few predictable accusations of defeatism and we’re not Rangers fans. Save it. We’ve not beaten Celtic in 90 minutes since 2012, and it’s naivety to just yell ‘no surrender’ when they have even more to play for than usual and our form is garbage. Feel free to smear us all you want, we’re just calling it honestly and would love to be wrong. We’re not surrendering – that is to lay down and concede. We just don’t expect them not to win. If you expect Rangers to win on Sunday, more power to you, but don’t smear us just because we fear Celtic doing so.