While Borna Barisic is no longer a Rangers player, his comments in the press are some of the most insightful stuff about why Rangers have been so below par since 55, and that despite the magnificent run to Sevilla, the Croat did reveal the club just isn’t well run and is missing something.
We meant, ‘haud the press’, right, this is nothing we didn’t know, but to have a player right in the heart of it reveal so much about how it’s all gone flat is useful and telling.
Of course, we know only too well a tonne of fans will slaughter the Croat, accusing him of being a coward, of ‘checking out’ since about 2022 – and it’s true, he is and did.
But equally attacking the man is pointless here – he’s trying to explain why he checked out, why it’s been so insipid save for that Sevilla run, and he’s worth listening to.
“When Steven left, I don’t think all the pieces of the jigsaw were there. A lot changed. Would we have won more titles if he’d stayed? I can’t say for sure but in the period since he left, the balance hasn’t been right in terms of the things you need to win the league. Parts of it weren’t good. Things weren’t always working at 100 per cent. And to be a champion, you need everything to be working together. It’s important that things are right on and off the pitch. And every year after Steven, there was something missing.”
Obviously the big factor for the ex-Osijek man was Steven Gerrard’s exit, but this is a guy who’s played under three managers since him and never felt comfortable with any of them.
Rangers haven’t really come close to the league since 55, save for last season and completely chucking it away – but we guess this is the point. If things were ‘working’ since Gerrard, we wouldn’t have done such things like chucking it away at all.
We’re not saying we immediately trust and believe Borna without any question, but it’s also not unfair to say his comments do stack up a bit.
In truth, he’s not saying much we don’t already know, the club has been a shambles since 55, but it’s telling that an ex-Rangers player who was very much at the heart of the club for the past 6 years is now saying this stuff ‘officially’.
He’s also not saying it out of malice, he’s just sad we didn’t win more, and he thinks he knows why.
He may be right.