There was one major reaction from Wednesday night’s defeat in Paisley from Rangers fans, and it was quite universal.
It was also true, correct, yet also strangely hypocritical.
Following on from weeks of praise at our squad that no matter which players were selected, Rangers were no weaker, suddenly fans changed their mind and argued Steven Gerrard should have sent out his best team.
And for a quarter final in the cup, we tended to agree.
This, unfortunately, was a match symptom of believing your own hype. That no matter the strength of the first XI, it was always enough to do the job whatever match.
Quite simply that isn’t true.
Rangers do have a strongest XI, but the drop down to the squad players is infinitely smaller than it used to be.
But it doesn’t mean that Bongani Zungu is a like-for-like replacement for Glen Kamara (not yet anyway), or that Cedric Itten leaves us no weaker than Alfredo Morelos.
Critically, we learned Calvin Bassey is a truly pale imitation for Borna Barisic.
This weekend we’ll be back to full strength. Guys like Bassey and Zungu and even Balogun may/will be on the bench again, and we’ll treat our opponent with the respect we perhaps didn’t show St Mirren.
But one thing is for sure, as brilliant as our squad now is, Rangers are still strongest when we pick our best XI.
And we will definitely do that come tomorrow.
Surely if we can rotate players to play away to Benfica we can do likewise away to St Mirren. The team that played the other night was easily good enough to beat St Mirren.
I was definitely in the camp that thought it was a strong 11 selected for St Mirren but like Gerrard, I think some fans have majorly overreacted. A defeat was always likely at some stage and personally I’d rather it came in the diddy cup than the league. However, today it’ll show how far we have come (or not). In recent years our performances at home after an exit from a domestic cup have been appalling. Three 1 each draws and that disaster of a defeat from Hamilton. 3 points and a confident performance is a must. Hopefully, we can prove the mentality has definitely shifted in this team.
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