FORGET ME NOT
McCrorie has slipped down Ibrox pecking order but is prepared to fight for his place
ROSS McCRORIE discovered it was far easier finding a way into the Rangers team last season than it was getting out of it. On return from three months out with an ankle injury in April, he was accommodated in the firing line of the centre-half position by Graeme Murty against Celtic in only his second game back.
A red card in the 4-0 Scottish Cup thrashing at Hampden was a bruising experience for the 20-year-old. Yet he was ushered straight back in to suffer the champions slamming five past beleaguered Rangers in the league two weeks later.
Steven Gerrard accused his predecessors of being ‘careless’ with McCrorie’s career by fielding the player at the heart of defence ever since Pedro Caixinha heralded him as a future Scotland centre-half.
McCrorie views himself as a ‘deep-lying midfielder’. So, clearly, does Gerrard. His performance in the victory over Celtic last month underscored his huge potential in the middle of the park.
Yet in the first game back from the winter break, that display counted for nothing when Gerrard named McCrorie on the bench at Rugby Park as he shuffled his pack to accommodate a diamond formation and Steven Davis.
This after he was linked with a move away from Rangers during the shutdown, with Swansea City among his confirmed admirers.
These are the constant reminders to McCrorie of how challenging the environment now is as he aims to become one of Gerrard’s main men in a successful Rangers future.
‘There’s no two ways about it, it’s tough because of the quality we’ve brought in,’ admitted McCrorie.
‘We’ve seen a massive quality of player arrive. That should be good for me as a young player. I can feed off more experienced players and I like the competition for places.
‘Seeing new players come in just made me hungrier. When you see people signing, it makes me want to perform and show I’m capable of stepping up to the plate.
‘After the game in December, I’m raring to get back into it.
‘I’m looking forward to taking responsibility in the team and helping to get us back on the road again.
‘So, yes, of course I want to fight for a place. Especially after the team’s performance against Celtic and the feeling we had after winning that game.
‘I want more of that. It was great for me, personally, and filled me with confidence. Especially after last season when I had a couple of bad experiences against Celtic.’
McCrorie’s former youth-team coach Ian Durrant, who took him to Dumbarton on loan two years ago, has exacting standards when it comes to identifying players with the correct credentials for a winning Rangers team.
Yet he was quick to praise an ice cool mentality within this impressive young man and that served McCrorie well following his torrid day of humiliating Old Firm defeat, compounded by conceding a penalty and being dismissed for a foul on Moussa Dembele in one go.
‘I got over it straight away,’ he stated. ‘You need to have a short memory when you’re playing football. You can’t let a bad performance affect you.
‘Obviously you learn from it but I didn’t let it affect me. I just believe in myself and my ability.
‘At a club like Rangers, the games come thick and fast and there’s no time to reflect badly on things.
‘I’ve come up through the youth ranks and I’ve learned how to cope with it. I don’t think I suffered much confidence-wise.’
McCrorie is bang in contention to return to the starting side today. Gerrard has admitted that Rangers are encroaching on ‘win-or-bust’ territory following the midweek setback at Kilmarnock and McCrorie agrees that a winning streak is now essential to mount a serious title challenge.
‘It felt like we’d shot ourselves in the foot on Wednesday and that the great result (against Celtic) doesn’t really count for anything,’ lamented McCrorie. ‘It’s up to us to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and go on a run again.
‘Livingston is a huge game for us because we need to bounce back from a poor result and there’s no excuses.’
Rangers have dropped 17 points in the 11 league games played on the road under Gerrard, including in a 1-0 shocker at the Tony Macaroni Arena back in late September.
The fixture list has asked Rangers to play back-to-back games within a week on artificial surfaces detested by Gerrard and several of his players. There are concerns, says Gerrard, about the toll on the bodies of not just veteran new boys Jermain Defoe and Davis but on their younger team-mates.
‘I’m always concerned about plastic pitches because I don’t like them, I don’t think they’re healthy and they shouldn’t be in elite football,’ said Gerrard. ‘But I’ll say that for the rest of my life.
‘On the back of a tough game on astro it does take longer to recover for everyone.
‘I need to find the freshest team and the team that is capable of bouncing back.
‘We’re on the back of a poor result that’s damaged us. So we need to get back to winning ways.
‘We’ve gone from everything being so positive to playing for only 20 minutes. We paid the price for that. And if we don’t perform at Livvy, we might pay a further price.’