Rangers have been nothing short of mediocre so far in 2022 ahead of their trip to Celtic Park tonight, yet Giovanni van Bronckhorst has somehow been happy with his team’s form.
Celtic go into tonight’s Glasgow derby at Parkhead full of confidence. 3 points and the Hoops will take top spot in the Premiership too, something that will strike fear into the Ibrox players.
And whilst our own impressive run of 4 wins out of 4 this year has boosted morale, Rangers’ decline has certainly helped. They’ve only won half of their 4 games this year, with the other 2 seeing them drop points at Aberdeen and Ross County respectively.
Their only wins have come at home against Stirling Albion in the Scottish Cup and a fortuitous 1-0 home win over Livingston. Yet despite their embarrassing 3-3 draw at County on Saturday, van Bronckhorst has incredibly stated he’s happy with their form.
Speaking to Sky Sports, the Rangers manager said: “Yes [on whether he’s happy with their form after the winter break]. Of course we missed some players at the beginning of the month for the first games, but I think we played our best game last Saturday.
“You could see the movement we wanted, the dynamic, the intention. I think we were the best I have seen us after the break. We didn’t put that performance into a win, but it was a difficult game and a game where we conceded too many goals from our own mistakes.
“We have to put that out of our game. But if we have the same intention and intensity that we had on Saturday, then we can have a good performance tomorrow [vs Celtic].”
If the Rangers from Saturday turn up tonight, Celtic will give them a going over
Surely the Rangers manager isn’t hammering home a similar message in the Ibrox dressing room. To actually come out and say he’s happy with 2 wins out of 4 and his lead being shortened by 4 points at the top? He needs to be smarter than that.
Of course, van Bronckhorst has already shown signs of a weaker mentality than will be needed if he wants to win the title this season. After their recent 1-1 slip-up at Pittodrie, the Dutchman stated he was happy with the point and that his team can’t expect to create chances everywhere they go [The Herald].
If we had only won 2 of our first 4 games and Ange said he was happy with our form, we would be raising an eyebrow. You would be having pundits coming out stating that he doesn’t understand how things work here. That his mentality isn’t strong enough or suitable enough for Scottish football.
In fairness to van Bronckhorst, he’s avoided snide jibes and any pre-match antagonising of Celtic in the build-up. He actually comes across quite well, which isn’t something you could’ve said about Steven Gerrard before him. And it’s clear both he and Ange have a mutual respect for each other [Sky Sports].
But that doesn’t mean their standards aren’t dropping. If they believe that what they’ve shown in 2022 so far is good enough to build upon, then they’re in for a bigger shock than even we know they are.
Tonight will tell us a lot. However, if the Rangers team that turned up on Saturday rears its head inside Parkhead? It’ll get gobbled up in convincing fashion.
In other news, Ange Postecoglou lauds “great” deadline day loan agreement for Celtic man Adam Montgomery
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