Glenn Gibbons: Candid comment exposes extent of Ibrox ills

Published on Friday 27 November 2009 22:51

IN COMMON with a majority of people, football managers tend to be at their most candid – and revealing – when they are unaware of the significance of what they are saying. When, for instance, Walter Smith reminded us this week that "it's not so long since Madjid Bougherra was a Charlton reserve", the remark was clearly meant as an oblique chastisement of the Algerian defender, guilty for a third time this season of returning late from international duty.

What the Rangers manager's jibe amounted to, however, was a scathing indictment of his entire team. A recent reserve for Charlton Athletic, then in the Championship but now residing in League One in England, has no right to be widely acknowledged as the most accomplished outfield player in the Ibrox first team.

Bougherra's status explains without the need for embellishment Rangers' pathetic showing in Group G of the Champions League, the campaign finally, officially, ended with Tuesday's embarrassing defeat from VfB Stuttgart. That the Scottish champions should have lost only 2-0 on a night when the German team could have scored seven was somehow even more demeaning than the previous reversals against Sevilla and Unirea Urziceni. There was something quite patronising about the visitors' performance in this last home match in the series.

But Bougherra is not the only player indicative of Rangers' present place in the European order of merit. Steve Davis, a celebrated midfielder at Ibrox, was a Fulham reserve when he was allowed to go to Rangers on loan and his purchase price of 3 million, from a Premier League club, would be regarded in England as a free sample.

In circumstances such as have been witnessed this week, many people seem to be afflicted by a strange psychology. Davis himself became one of the better-known victims when he expressed the fear that Rangers' elimination from Europe would result in the wholesale shipping of players to other clubs in January.

Many of Rangers' followers and several media commentators have declared the same misgivings, as if a sale would be another blow to an organisation already beset with difficulties. It is a curious view to hold of players whose glaring deficiencies have brought the humiliation, and it is a rare optimism that imagines so many will appeal to prospective buyers at worthwhile prices.

Perhaps it was a marketing exercise Smith had in mind when he said before the Stuttgart debacle that the Unirea setback might have been beneficial to his team because they had shown such sound form since that defeat. Otherwise, it was a bad case of self-delusion.

Rangers' form after Unirea included a draw with Hibs at home, a sweaty, rather fortunate 2-1 home win over St Mirren, 45 minutes at Tannadice in which they were comprehensively outplayed and a comfortable Ibrox win over a Kilmarnock side whose expenditure on trips to Glasgow should be no greater than the cost of the stamp required to post the three points to the Old Firm.