Rangers officially learned the difference between winners and losers today as Michael Beale’s inferior Ibrox side once again fell at the hands of a Celtic barely into second gear.
In fairness, Beale’s side did not play the worst they ever have, but a non-existent attack coupled with defensive errors and poor cohesion meant that once again a Rangers ‘trying their best’ were absolutely unable to breach Joe Hart’s goal, to the point where the ex-England stopper had barely one half-difficult save to make.
Ibrox Noise 100% anticipated this result, Rangers proving time and time again under this manager in the big matches that it doesn’t have the bottle, the tactics, the players or the sheer team to compete with Parkhead’s lot.
It doesn’t matter that we hit the post, it doesn’t matter that Sakala missed open goals again – it matters that Celtic didn’t – that they took their one big chance and they make the final.
Celtic didn’t actually turn up at Hampden today – it was probably the worst they’ve played in all four of Michael Beale’s Old Firm matches, and Rangers actually did show up, giving it a lot of heart (mostly, more on that later).
But that’s the problem. Rangers at their ‘best’ weren’t able to match, let alone beat Celtic in second gear.
Michael Beale, obviously, got everything wrong as per usual, showing more and more how out of his depth he currently is.
There is hope once he builds his own side that the gap to Celtic will close and he’ll learn this job better – under this boss we don’t expect 56 next season. Not at all. We can only hope we will lose the league by less of a distance than this time around.
Beale will have the whole of next campaign to be judged, but as things stand, he’s not learning anything about how to beat Celtic.
He makes the same errors repeatedly, and isn’t that the definition of insanity? To try the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome?
Rangers are second best in this country, and these days we can’t even beat Aberdeen.
Is it Warburton’s Rangers all over again as a dear friend of Ibrox Noise despondently suggested today?
Sadly, yes, at the moment it is.