Rangers Old Firm stunner emerges – 5 days later
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - OCTOBER 17: Steven Gerrard, Manager of Rangers interacts with James Tavernier of Rangers during the Ladbrokes Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Rangers at Celtic Park on October 17, 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland. Sporting stadiums around the UK remain under strict restrictions due to the Coronavirus Pandemic as Government social distancing laws prohibit fans inside venues resulting in games being played behind closed doors. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
It’s taken a while for us all to notice, but there was an Old Firm shocker that didn’t even occur at the time:
Saturday’s win at Parkhead may have been the first in history to feature not a single Scottish player in Rangers starting XI, with the obvious exception of goalkeeper Allan McGregor.
Tavernier, Goldson, Helander, Barisic, Kamara, Davis, Kent, Arfield, Barker, Morelos.
Now, many might point to Arfield, and yes, he’s a Scot born and bred, but he’s a Canada international and has as many ties to the Canucks as to Scotland. So he comes under the Canadian flag when it comes to football.
And on that basis, Rangers basically had no outfield Scots in their side.
There has often been an argument that Stevie isn’t into the Scottish players – and is that so hard to understand given how bad most of them are these days?
We look at the Ross McCrories, Jamie Murphies and Greg Docherties, and instead we have Kamara, Kent and Aribo.
It’s not hard to see why we appear to be going with less Scots these days. It’s a sad state of affairs, but they are mostly very poor, and couldn’t hope to match the Barry Fergusons and indeed McGregors of yesteryear, nor indeed Kamara or Kent today.
This is not to condone the lack of Scots in our squad – it’s sad, it’s poor, and it’s not good enough. But Stevie isn’t the first manager not to give many of our Scottish players a platform, and he won’t be the last.
As long as the displays and results are this good, we can’t really have a complaint.