Further to recent revelations about the nature of James Tavernier’s increasingly criticised captaincy, Steven Gerrard has also admitted the RB is borderline self-selecting, after he conceded that only an injury would ‘make the decision for me’.

We don’t want to pick on Tavernier, but it’s patently clear his lack of accountability and immunity from dropping not to mention his ill-suitability for the armband are all starting to deeply grate on fans, and his manager has gone further by admitting that only injury will stop Tavernier from being selected.

He said:

“If I feel anyone is not in the right place, whether it be to do with performances or from a mental point of view, I’ll do what I think is best in that situation.”

Seems not so bad, initially, suggesting the manager will analyse selections on a player-by-player basis.

But sadly he undoes that with this:

“Again, in this situation I will speak to James. I have that daily contact and dialogue with him anyway and I will see where he is at. Obviously the injury might make the decision for me if he is not available. But then we will go from there.”

In other words, if he’s fit, he plays, and only injury can possibly make him a non-selection.

We don’t like bullying our players, and we feel like we’ve done that lately, even if supporters and readers of our site certainly do so by blaming players too and endorsing such content, but the troubling situation of Tavernier’s immunity and ill-suiting leadership really does hark back to the dark days of Lee McCulloch’s captaincy and poor performances under seeming selection immunity.

We do not want any of our players being booed again like Jig was back in the day, but Gerrard is not helping himself here.

By confirming yesterday that both Goldson and Tavernier are 100% guaranteed starters, he’s making his own problems.

It’s not ideal, and no one should attain the Rangers jersey by right.