Nothing Rangers can do now to prevent drought spanning a decade

There has been much studying of the Premiership fixture list since it was published at the start of this week. One detail which so far has drawn little comment but will weigh heavily on the mind of Steven Gerrard, pictured, is confirmation the Betfred Cup final has been put back to 2021.

As the earlier rounds are not scheduled to begin until October, they could not hope to squeeze in the final before the end of this year. It means Rangers are guaranteed to go ten years without winning a major domestic trophy for the first time in their history.

They can – at best – hope to lift their first major domestic trophy since 2011’s Scottish title sometime in 2021. The years in between, of course, saw the club go bankrupt. They were nevertheless still playing football. They were still competing in all competitions, if in a slightly diminished capacity at first.

No one can be too surprised that messrs Alexander, Mcculloch, Bocanegra, Wallace, Goian, Broadfoot, Hutton, Macleod, Mckay, Black and Little – the team that faced Brechin City in the Ramsdens Cup in July 2012 – did not go on to win anything other than the Third Division championship.

But they will know they fell short when losing to fellow Championship side Hibs in the Scottish Cup final in May 2016. That’s the crux. Plenty of other clubs – eight in total, other than Celtic – have won something, several of whom enjoyed days that must be counted as among the greatest in their history, if not the greatest: Inverness Caledonian Thistle and St Johnstone spring to mind.

A lot of this is not relevant to Gerrard. He can only accept responsibility for what has happened since the summer of 2018, when he was appointed. But he will feel they ought to have rectified this unprecedented domestic drought by now.