Kembali
If there was one moment that could have just got Derek McInnes and Rangers seriously out of jail at Hearts last night, it was of course the final kick of the ball and avoided being losers.
Rangers fans who watched the match will be well aware of what happened in the dying seconds. James Penrice put a perfect ball into the box, right onto the head of Dujon Sterling. He only had to put it past the Hearts stopper. It would have been quite categorically the biggest robbery on planet Earth, but a glorious moment.
Unfortunately, Sterling got his positioning horribly wrong and ended up chesting it gently into the goalkeeper’s hands. It was a complete and total flub in front of goal in which scoring was technically easier than missing.
This moment was defining. We don’t know if we’d say that this has just lost Rangers the league. It’s much more than just Dujon Sterling missing when he’s not even a striker in the first place.
This is on Derek McInnes far more than anything to do with what our right back did. But Sterling’s miss defined the potential.
Celtic’s unlikely draw against Dundee United gave Rangers a huge escape clause, a gigantic get out of jail card. Rangers were so fortunate, along with Derek McInnes, to get that. It was completely undeserved.
But it shows at last that teams can take points off Celtic and that they are no longer relentless. We’re sure their fans are melting with rage at not going six points clear.
The simple reality is that Rangers had a chance in the dying embers to steal an absolute mugging of three points. And that would have been the goal of champions.
We will be bold enough to say that. That would have been the goal of champions.
Rangers would have cut the gap almost completely to just two points. And suddenly it’s game on for the whole season.
One fractional moment has swung the whole league.
Obviously, as we’ve mentioned many times, you do not win the league in November or late October. But you can lose it.
And this was the moment where Rangers could have made a big statement. Clawed a whole bunch of the gap back to Celtic and put themselves in serious contention.
But the fact that Sterling missed was probably for the right reasons, if we are honest. It was gutting, but it was probably fair.
Rangers on no level deserved to win the match, but that’s not what it’s all about.
Ibrox Noise made a an emotional post on our social media channels in reaction to Sterling’s miss. We pointed out that Rangers should have won that game. But Rangers are just losers alas.
Fans, of course, in the comments were filled with rage. They said that we had not played anywhere near well enough and didn’t deserve to.
But they’d misunderstood the post. All we meant was that Sterling should have scored and we should have nicked it at the end.
We were stunned that we didn’t. We still remain so to this day.
However, the fans were right. On no level did Rangers deserve to win the match.
But that is what champions are.
Are we about to say that Celtic deserved to win the league last season? Of course not. They didn’t deserve it at all. Hearts did.
And yet Celtic won. That’s what champions are. And it’s what Rangers aren’t.
We explained recently how Celtic had around 70 title winners overall in their squad and Rangers have barely seven.
That showed last night. Even when Celtic failed to secure three points in a rare dropping of form, Rangers still could not take advantage. They couldn’t get that absolute dying goal in the last second when it truly, truly counted.
Consequently, at this time we can’t say that Rangers either deserve to win the league or have the mentality to do so. Rangers are just losers right now.
How do you overcome 70 trophies or medals with the seven that we have?
We just don’t have champions anywhere throughout the team.
And that is showing.