We’re hearing this phrase ‘nothing between the two teams’ a lot this season from Rangers fans seeking solace somewhere to vindicate and defend the team in light of just a single point against Celtic and defeats all-round otherwise.

And the view isn’t completely wrong – in single individual matches there can often be ‘nothing to choose’ between Rangers and Celtic.

But there’s two massive flaws here.

1: It’s still Celtic who wins, so it doesn’t matter what the teams play like, what matters is the goals and points on the board at the end of 90 minutes.

2: There was ‘nothing between the teams’ either when Celtic lost and drew in the Champions League, or when they lost to St Mirren last September. It’s just an excuse made by fans of a team which ignores the bigger picture.

And therein is the nub of the matter – the bigger picture is always what matters, NOT a single-90-minute match. The outcome of that match may matter in the bigger picture (such as a cup match) but the overall bigger picture is the true stuff.

And while fans seek some solace in our team ‘matching’ Celtic over 90 minutes three times under Beale, the overall score completely favours Celtic, ditto the trophy haul and certainly the points tally.

We’re honestly fed up with it.

It did Tommy Burns no good in the 90s to know his team ‘matched’ Rangers because they kept losing, and it does Rangers no good now.

What does us good is turning into winners. It doesn’t matter how, and we’re not sure we have a manager who can make us winners either, but it matters that we do it.

If there’s one thing we can say for Stavros in the east, he’d won a tonne Down Under before Celtic got him, so he knows how to win. Michael Beale has never won a thing as a manager, and has only been one for 9 months.

So while we’ll babble about that later, regardless, pontificating about ‘matching’ Celtic in 90 minutes is useless. Only beating them is not.

And that’s where Rangers fall short for now.