Rangers appear to laughably believe that they’ve shown substantial improvement from their Glasgow derby defeat within 4 days because they managed to beat hopeless Hearts.
Celtic battered Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men at Parkhead last Wednesday. The 3-0 scoreline was fully reflective of the game, and if anything, it could’ve easily been more than the full-time scoreline showed.
We all knew Rangers beating Hearts was going to be hyped up massively. After all it was all about the “reaction” wasn’t it? However, it appears as though those at Ibrox are trying to push a desperate narrative of severe improvement within just a 4-day period.
Their manager, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, somehow believes that to be the case despite the fact they were up against a substantially lesser-quality side. He said as quoted by the Herald: “What I have learned is that we reacted well. We picked up different areas of our play which wasn’t good enough in the midweek game.
“We really improved in that. We were quite aggressive, we were pressing at the right moments with the whole team. The case is now to go on on this path and make sure we keep the levels and also be sharp and able to confront when players aren’t doing that or making mistakes.
“Just make sure you keep that level as a team as well – for me as a coach, from the sidelines, but also as a team. I saw that on Wednesday.”
Rangers trying to measure improvement on Celtic display against lesser-quality sides
We’ve already had to listen to the likes of Scott Arfield talking up Rangers’ “reaction” [Scottish Sun]. John Lundstrum was the latest player to talk up their big improvement [Scottish Sun]. It’s utter desperation stuff.
The truth is that Rangers won’t ever have the chance to show they’ve improved until they come up against Celtic again. Because they simply won’t face the kind of opposition that Ange Postecoglou’s team are. They won’t face a side that’s as in their faces as Celtic were. Nobody will put on the kind of high press we did or play with anywhere near the same intensity.
It’s easy to batter an overly-defensive Hearts and come out thinking you’ve raised your games by several levels. Unfortunately for them, the reality is that the quality of opposition you’ve just beaten is nowhere near what you faced last Wednesday.
They were never truly going to be honest with themselves though, were they? They can’t bring themselves to accept that Celtic are in a position to humiliate them and turn the tide of these Glasgow derbies around. Instead, they’ll come out and state that they’ve improved hugely within just several days. That the Celtic game was a freak performance.
But comparing Rangers’ display against Celtic to their win over Hearts is totally nonsensical. Hearts stood off Rangers and didn’t have anywhere near the pace to be a threat. So of course our rivals will look better against that low standard of opposition. But if you threw them back into the Parkhead cauldron tonight? They’d undoubtedly crumble as easily as they did last week.
Even so, expect them to continue pushing false narratives as they look to try and convince themselves they’re still ahead of us in terms of quality. Of course, we all know the truth – this Rangers team looks like it’s in for a rude awakening.
In other news, Celtic hero “feeling back to my old self” after nasty injury last month
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