BARRY - GERS STARS HAVE A CHANCE TO BE LEGENDS
Gerrard’s champions can beat Celtic again and deliver the Double
THEY are already heroes. One look at the joy in the faces of their own fans after No.55 was secured will have told them that.
But now Steven Gerrard and his Rangers players have a chance to end the season as legends for the rest of time.
Beat Celtic tomorrow, take the Scottish Cup out of their trophy room and leave another big gap on their mantelpiece beside the one where the Premiership title used to stand.
The perfect end to the perfect season. That’s what should be driving these players as the clock ticks down towards a fourth-round tie so tasty my mouth has been watering all week just thinking about it.
Without disrespecting any other teams, we all know whoever walks out of Ibrox as winners tomorrow will be red-hot favourites to go on and lift a very special piece of silverware. The oldest cup in world football.
Trust me, it’s an incredible feeling when you’re lifting it above your head and it’s draped in red, white and blue ribbons.
So I’m already looking forward to May 22 and I can picture it already. Hopefully, if the authorities have any sense, they’ll move the end of season finale away from Hampden so that at least some fans can be allowed in.
I know there will be contractual issues to get around but they can’t be insurmountable. After the year the world has just gone through, the idea of getting even 10,000 fans into a stadium would feel like a shot in the arm to the whole country. The SFA should move heaven and earth to make it happen.
And if Rangers win tomorrow that would open up the prospect of going to Parkhead in the glorious sunshine with the chance to complete a league and cup Double for the first time in 12 long years – in front of their own supporters.
I couldn’t dream of a better way for them to bring the curtain down on such an outstanding campaign. The club deserves it. The fans deserve it. But it’s up to these players to make it happen and I have to say, I don’t doubt them for a second.
Yes, there has been a dropping off in their levels over the last few weeks but what has impressed me has been their ability to find ways to keep on winning even when they’re not at the very top of their game.
That tells me a great deal about the character of these guys. And I’d love to be in that dressing room standing shoulder to shoulder with them. My time has come and gone but the only time I wish I could roll back the years is whenever this fixture comes around.
I start imagining how the boys must be feeling as the week goes on. ‘Three more sleeps. The nerves are starting to ramp up. Two more sleeps, the excitement is boiling over inside. One more sleep, f ****** let me at them!’
I’m not kidding. I’m ready to pull my Castore top on right now!
But the players don’t need me to tell them how vital this match is and how much it means to the supporters. They’ve seen it already by delivering the title. These guys know now what being a Rangers player and a winner is all about.
It was just a year ago these guys were being told they weren’t good enough to wear the shirt.
The feeling was they simply weren’t cut out to become champions. That they weren’t strong enough.
Well they’ve proved over the last 12 months they really do belong at this level and they’ve done it in some style. Now they’ve experienced how good it feels, they’ll be desperate to get another taste of it next month.
Celtic are going to come at them with all guns blazing and Rangers will be ready for a right, good old fashioned ding-dong. If the last couple of Old Firm games have felt a little bit low key then I fully expect this one to be full of blood and thunder because of what is at stake. Celtic are wounded animals and Rangers will want to bury them.
I expect goals. I expect flash points. I expect tackles flying in and all the fire and the drama which make this fixture the best derby in the world by a country mile.
This one is win or bust. But there’s a strength and a unity about these Rangers players which I’ve not seen at Ibrox for such a long time. You’ve seen that in the way they’ve backed Glen Kamara over the last few weeks.
And they’ll be disgusted by UEFA’s decision to give Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela a 10-game ban.
What happened to Glen was an absolute disgrace and for the guy to get such a soft punishment would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.
But I don’t think an injustice like that will galvanise these players any more than they already were. They’re in this together, every single one of them.
And this is the perfect chance for them to show just how far they have come together.
These guys know now what being a Rangers player and a winner is all about