With the only Rangers call up to Scotland being Ryan Jack, it’s safe to say our relations with the national team have never been poorer.
It’s not just that Rangers and Scotland do not see eye-to-eye and haven’t since 2008 and Loch Lomond, it’s the reality we as a club simply do not produce or even sign quality Scottish players like we used to.
Think back to that older era, and the number of Rangers players we saw in the national team:
McGregor, Hutton, Weir, Ferguson, Thomson, Boyd, Miller and a few others besides.
Now it’s Ryan Jack and that’s it – and he has no guarantee of actually starting. John Souttar is a maybe, he wasn’t a permanent fixture at that level yet, and he has to start all over again now.
But worryingly, it’s not just Scotland we’re failing – it’s international in general. Ibrox Noise has always contended that you measure the quality of a squad by the number of current international players it has.
Right now, Jack and Finland’s Glen Kamara are the only call ups.
All the players we used to see go out on duty are either injured or moved on – and remember, we had three internationals in one with Nigeria in the shape of Bassey, Balogun and Aribo. All gone, and most of them struggling at their new clubs.
But the old list was McLaughlin, Patterson, Ridvan, Barisic, Helander, Jack, Davis, Roofe, Lawrence, Matondo, Hagi and Morelos and a few others.
But all of these are either dropped, or taking a time out, or injured or gone, meaning for a club the size of Rangers, we have just two call ups now.
This absolutely isn’t right – we should have a third to half our squad going out on international duty, it’s the normal way of things. And for those selfish fans yelling ‘good, don’t want them injured’, well, keep your small-mindedness to yourselves. The more caps our players have, the more they’re worth to the club and the small matter of their own increased self-esteem in playing for their country. Which means better performances for us.
So it’s far from ideal these days.
Yes, we do have a lot of them injured, but equally we have a tonne of fit players, and even those aren’t being picked up.
Does this hint back into our earlier piece about star sales not working out at their new clubs? We’re not sure.
All we know is our present squad evidently falls short of many levels, and current caps is absolutely one of them.