We’re not surprised that the media are a little bit misrepresenting what Rangers’ (only) playmaker Tom Lawrence has been saying, by alleging that he’s defiantly growling in the direction of the Old Firm this weekend.

If you read the headlines they sound like he’s boastfully bragging about proving everyone wrong this weekend, and is confident of the win, because quite a few Rangers players have alluded to that in recent years before a Celtic match.

Fashion Sakala and Scott Wright are a couple of those guilty of misguidedly opening their traps and ending up looking silly, especially in Sakala’s case, so it’s easy to make a headline akin to that these days regardless.

But Lawrence said nothing of the sort:

“It’s obviously a massive game for the club. For us to play the way that we know we can do. That’s what we try to do every game. We know it’s a big game and we look forward to them. I don’t know [if we will look at the games against them last season]. That’s up to the gaffer. This week it’ll be a good week’s training, full week into it and then we look forward to it. I think everyone wrote us off before we kicked a ball, didn’t they? So we’re used to that and we look forward to it next week. I think it brings the best out of you at the end of the day. You take it with a pinch of salt and that’s the main thing. You look to perform every time you get on the pitch and that’s the main thing.”

Of all things for our players to come out with pre-Old Firm, this is definitely one of the more cautious and a lot less arrogant than the silly things other players have said.

But the Scottish press loves a headline, and have decide to use ‘defiance’ and a sense of cockiness where there’s none in what he said.

Of course, he’s airbrushed rather over just how rotten Rangers have been v Celtic, how poor the record is, but Tom Lawrence isn’t usually someone who speaks up about the club in general anyway.

Either way, he’s done better than most at playing it reasonably cool. We hope others follow that lead.