Dig for victory, says Steven Whittaker

Published on Sunday 1 May 2011 14:13

WITH the destiny of the league race no longer theirs to determine, Rangers know that they need to win their remaining games as emphatically as possible to put the maximum pressure on Celtic.

They did that in style against Motherwell, and after the 5-0 win Steven Whittaker expressed his confidence in his team's ability to do something similar in their remaining three matches.

"We know that after the draw at Ibrox (against Celtic last Sunday] it's not in our hands any more, but we can only win the games we've got, pick the points up, and it's up to them to win all their games to win the title," the right-back said. "We'll give it our best shot and hopefully win all the matches that are left.

"The games are there to be won, and we believe we can win them. We showed (against Motherwell] that we had the attitude and the determination to win the match and we'll have the same attitude in the next three games. At the minute we're the champions and we want to retain that."

In some previous seasons, notably 2007-08 when they reached the Uefa Cup final, Rangers could do little more than scrape together some narrow wins by this stage of the campaign, fatigue having begun to take its toll. This time, however, they look far fresher, and seem to be hitting a rich streak of form at exactly the right time.

"We didn't have the biggest squad to freshen things up, but the boys are fit," Whittaker added. "It's been a bonus (not having midweek games]. It's nice to finally relax for a couple of days and to have space between games because it becomes mentally tiring. Now we think 'When's the next game going to be?' rather than thinking that you've got one every couple of days. Either way, the players know what it's like and we can adapt to the situation.

"Everyone needs to be there and to dig in as a team - and we do that. We've got boys in the squad who are more than capable of digging in."