Rangers can toast title but cup exits will hurt Gerrard
Former Scotland boss and our Euro 2020 columnist
THE Premiership title was clearly the number one target and the most important piece of silverware for Rangers to win this season. But, we have emphasised the need for Rangers to win a trophy and then focus on and win the next one – and not winning either the Betfred Cup or the Scottish Cup will hurt Steven Gerrard, his players and the fans.
With Celtic out of the Betfred Cup in December, there was a chance for Rangers to go on and win the treble. After beating them in the Scottish Cup a fortnight ago, they were looking to go on and do the double.
Steven admitted after the St Johnstone game that one out of nine in terms of trophies wasn’t good enough and when you have watched him after each cup exit over the years, you can tell that he has been devastated by the results.
On Sunday, the thing he can criticise his players most for was their inability to finish. They hit the post, Zander Clark made a few good saves and there were a couple of good chances missed.
It is a game that Rangers should have won given how the chances went, but that takes nothing away from St Johnstone’s excellent performance and the icing on the cake was obviously Clark getting the assist for the goal and then saving twice in the shoot-out.
Credit goes to St Johnstone for hanging in there until extra-time and then being able to come back from James Tavernier scoring when that could have knocked the stuffing out of them.
To win it in the manner in which they did was an incredible achievement and they will now fancy their chances of going all the way and adding the Scottish Cup to their Betfred Cup win from earlier in the season.
Their win shows other Premiership teams what is possible and the competition has now really opened up going into the semi-finals in a couple of weeks.
If St Johnstone could win it then what a first season in charge that would be for Callum Davidson. He has done a great job there and there could still be more to come.
For Rangers, it is a missed
opportunity and Steven will be aware of that. There was an expectation that they would win the cup given that they had what was seen as a clear route once they knocked Celtic out.
On paper, Rangers should have won at least one of the cup competitions this season and should have progressed a lot further than they have done at various stages over the last three years.
They had their chances against St Johnstone but they were just not clinical enough in front of goal and Steven, his staff and the players would have had a sleepless night on Sunday that’s for sure.
Rangers haven’t progressed beyond the quarter-finals in the Scottish Cup and only have the one League Cup final appearance under Steven and we all know that the demands at Ibrox are such that having a record like that will be questioned.
But you have to look at the building process that has gone on over the last three years and the improvements that Rangers have made since Steven and his staff came in.
This season, it looked like everything was right. The recruitment was excellent, the title was won in style and you would have thought that the door was open for them to do a treble or a double.
It is a missed opportunity and Steven will be thinking that as well. Speaking from experience, I know what it is like to be at Rangers when you don’t win and you don’t add to your trophy haul and you do feel that weight of expectation from the support.
Steven will rue the St Johnstone result for a while and he will know that they should have added at least one more trophy to the one that they won so impressively last month. As I said, the Premiership title was the main ambition for Rangers this season and they won that so emphatically. To win the league for the first time in a decade was a huge achievement for Rangers.
But Steven will definitely be going into the summer thinking ‘I should have had a couple of trophies this season’. That is not being disrespectful to anyone else, it is just acknowledging that he could have had a couple of medals.
He did, though, get the most important one and that is the one that the Rangers support will cherish right now and come the end of the season.
Going forward, there will be that expectation that Rangers win as much as possible. When they win one, they want to win the next one and the next one and I know the disappointment that he will be feeling having not done that this season.
You could see the emotions on the faces of Steven and his staff when Rangers scored and then when they got beaten and you can see how much the game and the cup meant to them.
The challenge now for them is to pick themselves up and get ready for the Old Firm game on Sunday and take the next step towards their unbeaten Premiership campaign.
Celtic will want to try and salvage something from these games before the season ends and it would mean a lot for them to come to Ibrox and win this weekend and avoid going through the campaign without an Old Firm victory.
But Rangers will be smarting from the cup game and this is a chance for them to try and get over that one. It is probably a good game for them to have in that respect.
It won’t take away the disappointment from missing out on the Scottish Cup, that is for sure. But it is another opportunity to show why they have been the best team in the Premiership and why they are champions this season.