Michael Beale has taken a gamble. Rangers’ manager has revealed the team he will pick this weekend will be pretty much the one that comfortably won at Livingston.

That isn’t the gamble though:

The gamble is the guessing game – Michael Beale is either being dead honest and we lack a bunch of players and Rangers will indeed start at Hampden with more or less the same side that took to the 5G at Almondvale, or he’s lying his backside off, throwing a bunch of red herrings into the mix and making it impossible to guess the XI for Sunday.

And we absolutely love the approach here at Ibrox Noise.

See, this is the first time his past lies and BS piffle in the press has ended up being a huge tool in his armoury. Because we know him to be a liar (we’ve lost count of them) we don’t trust much of what he says.

Which means he now has the ability to say what he wants in the press and no one has a clue if it’s true or not.

And for Sunday’s final, that’s absolutely perfect. We don’t want to be able to guess with ease, because if we can, so can the green and white lot we’re facing.

And any weapon we can have in our armoury to gain an advantage going into this one is absolutely useful, and should be used. Beale has done little but spout fabricated piffle – he’s mixed some truth in there too, don’t get us wrong, but it’s been mostly hokum.

And now it’s proving to be an asset, because he can spring whatever he likes on Sunday, say whatever he likes now, and we don’t know if it’s even remotely true.

There are certain things he says that are true, like his opinions at times, and certain general observations, and even transfer speculation – but for team selections, systems and injuries, Beale is a complete liar, and that is very, very useful asset to have going into Sunday.

Stavros can’t guess Rangers’ team any better than we can. It could very much work in our favour.