Celtic top the Scottish Premiership table by three points heading into tomorrow night’s game with St Mirren at Celtic Park. It’s been quite a turnaround as the Hoops came out of the winter break, six points behind theRangers, with Sunday’s goalless draw at Easter Road the only two points Celtic have dropped in 2022.
Meanwhile over at Ibrox it’s been a case of eleven points dropped, no away wins this year, and the incredible concession of two points in the title race as Motherwell drew at Ibrox after theRangers let slip a two-goal advantage at home.
This has led to not unreasonable questions being raised around the strength of mentality from those in the Ibrox dressing room, with captain James Tavernier it appears requiring a bit of a history lesson when he states in the Daily Record, he doesn’t believe anyone could question the mental strength inside Ibrox.
“Regardless of what they do, we concentrate on ourselves. I don’t think you can question the mentality of the side. If you look at the two games against Dortmund there is no questioning the mentality of the side.
“There are only three points in it. We are right there. Obviously, we are disappointed in some of the games dropping points but performances have been good and we just need to improve on small areas and results will come.”
Of course, you’d expect theRangers captain to rally his troops, after all you need to show leadership in times of crisis and any sign of weakness can be targeted by your rivals.
Strange then that in his own captain’s programme notes prior to a home defeat to Hamilton Accies in March 2020, it was the captain and not outside influences who questioned the mental strength of his teammates, many of whom remain sat beside him these days in the Ibrox dressing room.
“Whenever anybody puts a bit of pressure on us in Scotland or gets in our face it seems to affect us too much. At the start of the season teams dropped off us and we were scoring four or five goals, but now they smell blood straight away and put us under pressure.
“We are not good enough domestically to react to that.”
A case of do what I say not what I do from James Tavernier then it would seem.
The current club playing out of Ibrox have always had a weakness when it comes to handling pressure, indeed the only time they’ve lifted a trophy of note in their short lifespan was a title win played out behind closed doors and against a Celtic team that had self-imploded.
It’s simply not a case of no-one being able to question the mentality inside theRangers dressing room, instead history shows everyone would be perfectly entitled to, and able to back it up, much like James Tavernier himself did, before changing his tune.
Niall J
