ROAD TO NOWHERE
That’s where Pedro’s men will be going on long journey south from Dingwall if they don’t win
THE bus journey back from the Highlands after a defeat is difficult enough.
But if Rangers lose to Ross County on Sunday they will find themselves already on the road to nowhere in this season’s title race.
Falling eight points behind Celtic and Aberdeen with only four league games played and an international break looming? Unthinkable.
Rangers must not head into the first Old Firm game at Ibrox on September 23 any further behind than the five-point gap and must also pray Celtic drop at least a couple of points between now and then.
On current form that looks unlikely but Rangers can only control their own business – that’s why a win at the Global Energy Stadium is an absolute must.
They can play like Real Madrid or scrap like Conor McGregor but the only thing on the minds of the Ibrox players should be a win, any which way they can.
I’ve travelled down the road from places such as Inverness and Aberdeen nursing nothing but regrets after defeats. It’s the loneliest and quietest bus journey in the world – three-and-a-half hours that pass so slowly you feel you’ve been in your seat 10 times as long.
The time was almost always spent in silence, staring out the tinted windows at empty fields passing in a blur or, at night, with nothing but your own reflection staring back at you.
Occasionally, you’d pass a supporters’ bus. Abuse was never an issue but it wasn’t half tough seeing the faces of fans hurting every bit as badly as you and maybe in some cases even a little more.
These were bus journeys from hell and I always reminded myself of them the next time I headed north for a match. I wasn’t slow in letting my team-mates know about it either: “Remember the misery of that last bus trip back from Caley Thistle? Don’t dare let it happen again.”
Rangers have left themselves with little wriggle room after an unconvincing start to the league season that has yielded a win, a draw and a defeat.
It’s still too early to rush to judgment on the potential for the long-term success of Pedro Caixinha at Ibrox but it’s fair people will begin to form valid opinions on the progress he’s making after the first quarter of the campaign.
Pedro has a style of attacking football that’s pleasing on the eye but has been at Ibrox long enough now to know the first, last and everything for Rangers is winning.
He’s been working with most of this group since the start of June, longer than many other managers in the country with their squads. Sure, every coach would prefer more time but that’s a commodity that’s never been in abundance at Ibrox. The demands of the fans are simple – just win.
Rangers can bite, scratch and put in their worst performance of the season against the Staggies so long as they leave Dingwall on Sunday with a win.
They will have to scrap hard in the opening stages to earn the right to play their preferred brand of football because Jim McIntyre and Billy Dodds will have their players ready to prevent Rangers playing their passing game which can be so easy on the eye.
The Ross County management team have done a magnificent job, quietly and largely without hype. It must be difficult to attract signing targets to Dingwall to live and work but they’ve achieved so much.
However, it’s time for Rangers to step up. With respect to County, Caixinha has better quality at his disposal – and the pressure is on them to show it.
They should walk in that door shortly after 1pm on Sunday and acknowledge they are about to face a group of players desperate to get the better of them.
The sooner they realise that the better. It’s time for Rangers players to stand up and be counted.
Of course their task has not been made any easier by the success of Celtic and they have just earned the right to bank at least another £30million from their qualification to the Champions League group stage.
Have I been sitting here cheering on Celtic in Europe? No, but that doesn’t mean I cannot give credit for successfully negotiating those challenging qualification rounds for the second year in a row.
Brendan Rodgers’s team looked wobbly for a 15-minute spell against Astana the other night and it’s a pressure we haven’t seen them under often enough in the domestic game.
However, the sign of a good team is they emerge from those tough periods. Brendan made a couple of tweaks to his formation, freshened up his side from the bench and got the response to see them through.
The disappointment of Rangers’ last two results against Hibs and Hearts means they could head into the Celtic game next month not close enough to put their rivals under a rare bout of domestic pressure.
If they do move to within a point or two of Celtic at the top and then win at Ibrox, how will Scott Brown and Co react to having their authority challenged?
No one knows and I was interested in seeing how that might play out before Rangers failed to beat the Edinburgh clubs.
It may still come to pass, of course, but unless Rangers win at Ross County they will have to buy a ticket back into the Premiership title race once the Scotland games are out of the way.
Pedro has been at Ibrox long enough to know winning is everything