DON’T PANIC! (WE’RE ACTUALLY AHEAD OF TARGET)
A Hampden humiliation Players losing the plot on and off the park ++ An interim boss out of his depth ++ No guarantee of second place ++ Now Rangers fans are told
RANGERS director Alastair Johnston has claimed Rangers are ‘ahead of the curve’ in their quest to catch Celtic.
The Ibrox club are in disarray after last weekend’s 4-0 thrashing by their bitter rivals in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup.
Club captain Lee Wallace and striker Kenny Miller were suspended following an angry post-match exchange with interim boss Graeme Murty in the Hampden dressing room.
Yet, insisting Murty’s future is being assessed in an ‘objective’ way, Johnston dismissed talk of a crisis when he claimed a second-place finish in the Premiership would represent ‘gradual’ progress from the financial implosion of 2012.
‘We are probably doing a little better than we would have imagined back in the dark days of running out at Brechin
in the fourth tier,’ claimed the former chairman. ‘So you have to look back. The fans have been terrific, as I would have expected them to be, to hang in there and hopefully they will be rewarded. ‘In terms of looking forward from where we were four or five years ago at the bottom, the progress that has been gradually made, we are probably ahead of the curve in reality if we finish second or third. ‘We are making progress. ‘Hopefully the curve will be fast but it is still going to be gradual, it is not going to happen overnight.’ Johnston’s claims will raise eyebrows among supporters following widespread criticism of the running of the Ibrox club by its directors. Currently seeking a new manager, Sportsmail understands there has been
no contact with Preston North End boss Alex Neil despite him surging up the bookmakers’ odds. Dutch legend Frank de Boer has also been heavily tipped for the post after Murty’s hopes of a permanent appointment all but disappeared at Hampden last weekend. Claiming that the Rangers board would not be swayed by the emotion of losing 4-0 to Celtic, Johnston added: ‘We have had the discipline of saying that we will evaluate the situation at the end of the season and the reason that we chose that is that at any given time during the period of his tenure there has been a lot of support for him and sometimes there has been not so much support. ‘We as a board have to take a very objective view and not be kind of swayed by the last result, whether it is positive or negative. ‘Certainly the weekend wasn’t a good weekend for us. I was there. ‘But as I said we have to be disciplined as a board and not be swayed by the emotions at any one game. ‘We have to look at the big picture. We owe that to the club, that’s what we are in place to do.’