Kenny Miller: No reason Rangers can't win Cup with current form

FOR four years Rangers have been in a different league from top flight teams. Saturday, though, was the first time that could be offered up as a glowing commendation of the Ibrox club.
Harry Forrester, centre, celebrates after scoring the opening goal for Rangers with Kenny Miller, left, and Rob Kiernan, right. Picture: SNS GroupHarry Forrester, centre, celebrates after scoring the opening goal for Rangers with Kenny Miller, left, and Rob Kiernan, right. Picture: SNS Group
Harry Forrester, centre, celebrates after scoring the opening goal for Rangers with Kenny Miller, left, and Rob Kiernan, right. Picture: SNS Group

The destruction of Dundee might have been a first puncturing of a Premiership team in home environs at a third attempt across the Mark Warburton era. And it should be noted too that, under Ally McCoist, successes against teams in Scotland’s highest set-up weren’t altogether rare. However, the energy, intensity and artfulness that completely overwhelmed Paul Hartley’s side to produce a thumping 13-second strike from Harry Forrester put Rangers’ romp into the Scottish Cup semi-final into the special category.

It appeared in the realms of a rebirth…following the questions over the club’s mortality subsequent to the 2012 liquidation. It feels as if Kenny Miller is the constant in all incarnations of Rangers past and present and so best placed to assess the trajectory that the soon-to-be Premiership team are on. A Scottish Cup win would bring European football to Ibrox again, and the Warburton way looks capable of delivering on such objectives.

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Granted, with the second-highest wage bill in the country throughout their lower league years, making a real impression in the major cups shouldn’t have been beyond them. Yet it was so, and it now does not seem so much of a stretch as Warburton gives them some bang for their buck.

“When you’ve been playing at the level we’ve been playing at the last few years, it’s hard to compare,” Miller said when asked if this was the best performance of his third spell. “You’re going to come through and win a lot of games. This is a new team, new management staff, we’re looking to improve all the time and I think we are getting better all the time. You’re seeing that there is not too big a gap between ourselves and the Premiership, although everybody keeps telling us that there is. To a man, we were excellent from start to finish. We’ve beaten a very good Premiership team.

“Listen, we’re not going to get too carried away. We’ve got a long, long way to go. We’ve got a lot of hard work still to do this season to make sure we get back to where we belong, but we’ll enjoy this win. We’re through to the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup, which is what we wanted to achieve. We’re through and we’re through well. It’s a fantastic performance with great goals and a convincing victory.”

Miller said there “was no reason we can’t win the cup if we play like” they did against Dundee with “getting back” to European level a “huge, huge incentive”. The home side played like a team on a mission with Kevin Holt dispossessed by Forrester to allow the English attacker to thump in his third goal in three games.

The surprise then was that, against opponents cast into complete disarray by the swarming, high-pressing strategy of Warburton’s men, it took till 90 seconds of the second half to finish the contest, Holt forcing in from a couple of yards after Forrester, Barrie McKay and Miller had combined to slice the visitors apart. Eight minutes later a precision low free-kick from Andy Halliday made it 3-0 with a mazy run and smart finish late on allowing captain Lee Wallace to bring up his 200th Rangers game in style.

Style, strength of character or even mere solidity were all wholly absent from Dundee’s pretty pathetic effort, which was in complete contrast to their outplaying of Celtic at Parkhead in midweek. Midfielder Paul McGowan painfully acknowledged as much.

“If you saw us on Wednesday, I thought we were brilliant. We worked ever so hard and we missed a great chance and if that went in we would have won. What a chance we had to beat Celtic. We were playing really well and the confidence was oozing through the team, but it has been sapped right out of us. It was just energy-sapping and we’re a fit team, but we looked really leggy.

“To start like we did at Ibrox was just criminal. The goal affected us massively and there’s no getting away from that. Rangers came out of the traps and it’s really difficult to recover from that. After that we froze. We didn’t pass the ball the way we can. Rangers wanted it more and that’s something I can’t say about our team because we have been brilliant for the past six or seven games. There are no complaints because the better team won.”