With so many Rangers fans still believing Rangers were the best team on Saturday, Ibrox Noise couldn’t help noticing the stats during Huddersfield Blackburn on Monday.
By 30 minutes Huddersfield were 2-0 up. How much possession? 15%.
Yup, they had 15% of the ball, and scored two goals.
Anyone looking at stats where a team has 85% possession would automatically assume the 2 goals were for them, but no. And what does this have to with Rangers?
It doesn’t matter which team is the ‘better’ one, nor which one has more of the ball, has more shots, has more chances, or which one plays better football.
Football, definitively, is measured by goals, nothing more.
Walter Smith’s legendary side in the 90s did not have all of the ball, his teams did not play possession football and Tommy Burns’ outstanding Celtic team, with all the possession and all the chances, could NOT beat his team.
Every time we faced Tommy’s Celtic, it was soak up the possession, the attacks, and hit them on the counter. A smash and grab every single time. With a wee reliance on the late great Goalie.
It didn’t matter that Burns’ side had all the ball, made all the plays, put in all the crosses, got the most shots on target.
It mattered who put the ball in the net the most, and that was Walter’s team.
It’s why Michael Beale’s Rangers fall short against Stavros’ side.
It doesn’t matter what the stats are, even though we are very much aligned to the information such data provides – what matters, end game, is who scores more.
And Celtic are destroying our team in that respect. They’re 30-odd goals ahead in the league, scoring many more than we are, so not only do they relentlessly win, they score many more goals as they do it, giving themselves an extra point in the league.
So yes, unfortunately it doesn’t matter who played better in an Old Firm match, it doesn’t matter who had more of the ball.
It matters who scored more, and while football is measured on goals, that’s the end of the story. Fix that, and we’ll be the best.
Till then, we’re sadly not.