56 just became absolutely 100% critical to Rangers

This is an intriguing entry for Ibrox Noise to be compiling and we find ourselves in a strange place cobbling this together.

Not, you understand, because winning the SPL is not important – it absolutely is, and 56 is high priority.

But because getting 55 was the main one, and getting a place in the CL as a result.

One out of two happened, and if we’d absolutely had to choose between the two it was no contest – 55 every time.

But losing out on the CL has cost us up to £60M in filthy lucre thanks to Celtic’s failure to get there as well, and that’s a huge hole in the coffers as well as loss of carrot to dangle in front of new signings.

But there’s a plan B, and it’s a doozy.

Suddenly, winning 56 actually becomes even MORE important than 55 because this season’s champions are gifted a place in the group stage of the Champions League.

Most of us know this by now, but the importance, thanks to failing this year in that competition, has become absolutely critical.

Winning the SPL this season becomes 100% non-negotiable, because that will guarantee us a payday unlike any we’ve seen for over a decade, and we know the club coffers are not filled with plunder right now.

While our fate IN the group stage next season is unpredictable (we could hugely improve squad-wise by then thanks to securing better signings lured by CL in the event of winning SPL) the results are not that important – GETTING to the group stage is.

And that means winning the SPL is simply essential this season.

Fail to win the league, and we almost certainly won’t make the CL group stage, and we’ll end up in a mediocrity UEL/SPL middleground for the foreseeable future.

And our club will not grow if that’s what we’re consigned to.

So it’s not rocket science – win the SPL, it’s more important than we could ever have imagined.