McDowall refuses to hit the panic button

IT WAS the day after Rangers’ first league defeat of the season and all was calm at Murray Park. Nobody was haring around in a blind panic. No alarm bells, real or metaphorical, were ringing.

The message from the champions was clear. If this is a crisis, it is one they would gladly have settled for at the start of the campaign.

Of course there has been a change of momentum in the league race. Celtic took six points out of six last week, while Rangers’ loss at Rugby Park on Sunday followed their goalless draw with St Johnstone eight days earlier. The champions’ lead, once a dozen points, is now down to four.

But no-one at the Ibrox club is interested in over-reacting to a single snapshot. They did not engage in premature celebrations when their city rivals were supposedly in crisis, and they will not indulge in despair now they are undergoing a sticky patch of their own.

Instead, they prefer to look back to how things were at the beginning of the campaign, and ahead to the finishing line in May, and conclude, with some justification, that they remain on course for a fourth consecutive title. “We’re nearly at the halfway stage and we’re four points clear,” assistant manager Kenny McDowall said yesterday. “We would have taken that at the start of the season.

“When you are sitting with a 12-point lead, it’s strange. It was a false lead, too, because we knew Celtic had to play Dunfermline in their game in hand. No disrespect, but that’s a home game you expect Celtic to win.

“So we knew that the lead would be cut there. We’ve also played a day before them at times – it can create a false impression. All you can do is keep winning your games and see where it takes you come May.”

The fact that Rangers have failed to keep winning over the last two weekends has not knocked them off their stride, according to McDowall. He knows there have been problems such as a lack of tempo, but they have also been evident in games the team have won. And he is also sure that some elements of the team’s play which were going well previously continued to do so against Kilmarnock – another reason, he reckons, why this is no time to have a crisis of confidence.

“It’s vital that you don’t panic,” he continued. “We can’t afford to panic. We have to stay calm and keep doing what we do. You have to accept that the other team is better than you some days. That wasn’t the case against Kilmarnock. Although we weren’t particularly great, we created the better chances.

“It goes with the territory, that people outside the club panic. That’s part of it – you have to take it on the chin and not let it affect you.

“When you have a big lead complacency can set in, but I don’t think that’s been the case with us. It’s not like we’ve never lost a game before. We all understand that, when you lose, you’ve got to hit back quickly – especially at a club like this. You can’t dwell too much on defeat, because there is always a game around the corner, a new challenge to get ready for.

“We do look at things, but we don’t change too much. We keep the same routine quite a bit. If we’re winning in that routine, then suddenly start losing in that routine, quite often it’s just that something hasn’t gone right on the day. We’ve told them it’s not good enough, but we’re only telling them what they know – that a draw isn’t acceptable here, never mind a loss.

“They’re professional enough to know it themselves. But it’s our job to tell them when it’s not good enough. The manager has done that. We know they understand it, because they are good and clever players. They are desperate to put things right. We’ll give them the gee up they need, but their big incentive is that they want to win the title.”

Besides the results, the one significant difference in the title race over the past few weeks has been Rangers’ loss of Steven Naismith to injury. Manager Ally McCoist called for other players to fill the void left by Naismith, who is out for the rest of the season, and striker Nikica Jelavic appeared to have heeded the call with two goals and an outstanding display in a 3-1 win over Dundee United.

In the past couple of games, though, no-one has been able to supply the dynamism and unpredictability which Naismith brings to the side.

To outsiders, it is clear that the Scotland international’s cruciate injury could prove to be a crucial point in the campaign, but McDowall believes the rest of the squad can still rise to the challenge and play at a higher tempo.

“We’ve got one or two injuries, although that’s no excuse. This is just a period we have to get over, until we get some [players] back.

“What do we do to improve the tempo? We tell them it needs to be better, first of all. We’ve said to them that coming back from the international break was obviously difficult for them, judging by their performances. But we don’t want to make that an excuse for them – it’s all about getting their minds right and ready to go. I don’t think confidence is a problem. How can you not be confident when you’re sitting at the top of the league? It’s just not starting well. Whether they’re sluggish, I don’t know. We’ve not changed much – we keep the same routine quite a bit.

“You’re there to be shot at when you’re out on your own. I thought we were unlucky to lose, so we’re not going to be too down.”

Rangers appear to have the ideal chance to get back to winning ways on Saturday, when they are at home to Dunfermline. But despite losing on the road on Sunday, their away record remains better than their form at Ibrox, where they have drawn with St Mirren and Hearts as well as St Johnstone.