I was too scunnered to write anything yesterday.
Not devastated more deflated.
We’ve been so generally poor this season with disastrous campaigns in both the Champions League and Europa League coming to an early end not to mention a pathetic early exit from the League Cup at home to struggling Ross County that I’ve become accustomed to disappointment on the park this term.
It’s been so acute too considering how dominant we’ve been during the previous decade and the last four years in particular where we’ve swept the boards domestically.
Recent performance had given hope for optimism but it was always a huge ask and it’s never ideal going into these sort of games with the kind of ‘now or never’ pressure we had on us to win.
Alas win we didn’t
Yes, we dominated and were miles ahead in the first half but failed to make it count.
Shorn of Arfield and Jack Rangers lacked any real physicality in the midfield and Turnbull, Soro, McGregor and Christie just had too much in their legs for Kamara, Aribo and the ageing Steven Davis to deal with.
On the flanks, Frimpong once again proved too pacey for Kent to make any impact and on the other side, Laxalt’s constant forages forward negated any danger from the free-scoring Rangers captain James Tavernier.
But the delivery of Frimpong and Laxalt let them down – not for the first time this season – and ultimately neither had an end product.
Meanwhile, Edouard, Griffiths and McGregor scuppered good chances to give us the lead and the Rangers keeper Allan McGregor produced a world-class save to keep another attempt by Griffiths out.
In the second half, we continued to dominate though ran out of ideas upfront and then the inevitable implosion came as Nir Bitton recklessly rugby tackled Alfredo Morelos to the ground as the Columbian was looking for a breakthrough into the box.
Could Kris Ajer have got back to block off the tuby Rangers frontman?
Possibly but the fact is that in these sort of games you never give any ref and especially not Bobby Madden a decision to make.
We did though and predictably the Israeli internationalist was shown a straight red.
After that, you got the feeling it was a question of when rather than if our hosts scored and they duly delivered as Callum McGregor once again proved to be a total liability in his own box and sent the ball past the despairing Barkas from a corner.
With us needing a win never mind a draw both Scott Brown and Hatem Elhamed found themselves subbed on during the second half with Leigh Griffiths incomprehensibly taken off not long after the red.
Shane Duffy replaced Griff to ‘shore up’ the defence and made his custom howler as he passed the ball directly to a Rangers player on the edge of the box and also nearly saw red himself.
In the end, Rangers didn’t register a shot on goal all afternoon and looked a bog-standard team yet we still somehow managed to hand them a 1-0 victory and in doing so we now sit a mammoth 19 points behind them in the league with ‘Ten in a Row’ as good as gone.
Yes, we still have three games in hand but even if we did win all of them we’d still be double digits behind them and the fact is we blew it on Saturday no matter how you carve it up.
We now require a miracle ie: a collapse of seismic proportions that even Rangers don’t seem capable of producing though we live in hope.
In the meantime, we’ve jetted off for an ill-advised trip to Dubai that looks like being cut short due to new Covid restrictions.
Any rational thinking person could see this was a bad idea taking into account various factors such as there being a worldwide pandemic active at the moment, the guarantee that new restrictions were coming into place post-Christmas not to mention the fact that there is no actual winter break this year or that NO OTHER team in Europe is doing it but hey-ho there are still some defending it.
That aside pictures of our players and staff supping pints by the poolside just doesn’t look good considering their pathetic efforts on the pitch this season.
Again you’ll hear nonsense such as ‘Can’t deny a man a pint after a hard days work’ and ‘stop being a snowflake’ to defend it.
The Stockholm syndrome style instinct to defend the club no matter how imbecilic or inappropriate its actions really are strong with an element of our support.
Anyway, they’ll be home soon and we next run out in seven days at Celtic Park to play fourth-placed Hibs.
Hibs themselves are currently struggling having seen a stellar season go belly up recently thanks to three straight defeats with the most recent two being home losses to bottom dwellers Ross County (2-0) and Livingston (3-0) both of whom bid farewell to their managers recently.
It goes without saying that we need to win it just like we’ll need to win every game between now and the end of the season whilst simultaneously required Rangers to drop points galore.
Is it possible?
In theory………..yes and let’s not forget they have form for bottling it in the second half of seasons under Gerrard not to mention they have a punishing Europa League campaign to resume next month.
When we went on our own season-long unbeaten streak back in 2016/17 which Rangers are currently trying to emulate we didn’t have midweek European encounters to negotiate post-Christmas and extended European runs have usually come with a domestic price to be paid as we found out in 2003 and they in 2008.
On both occasions, the title was decided on the final day of the season and the team still involved in European competition finished runners-up.
But the reality is we called Saturday a must-win game for a reason and if we were the ones 19 points clear we’d have the champagne chilling in the fridge already.
What will be will be and in the meantime we have to do whatever we can to apply some pressure.
After the Hibs game, we entertain Livingston the following Saturday and then travel to the Tony Macaroni only four days after that.
We then have a week to prepare for the visit of Hamilton Accies before undertaking a mammoth schedule in February where we’ll have to play seven league games plus begin our Scottish Cup defence.
That’s of course if the government don’t extend their lockdown restrictions to football in which case then null and avoiding this entire campaign surely has to be the only answer.
It’s the only way.
....Always A Tim! 