Rangers 'ready to prove mentality' after chat about Celtic team

Connor Goldson believes Rangers are finally ready to prove they can translate their one-off triumphs over Celtic into ending their Old Firm rivals’ long dominance of Scottish football.
Connor Goldson scores his second goal in Rangers' 2-0 Old Firm victory at Celtic Park (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)Connor Goldson scores his second goal in Rangers' 2-0 Old Firm victory at Celtic Park (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)
Connor Goldson scores his second goal in Rangers' 2-0 Old Firm victory at Celtic Park (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

Defender Goldson, who scored both goals in Rangers’ 2-0 win at Celtic Park on Saturday, feels Steven Gerrard’s team now have both the mentality and experience necessary to sustain a title challenge and deliver trophies to the Ibrox club for the first time since 2011.

"Hopefully we can back it up and by the end of the season we can celebrate,” said Goldson. "I think it’s changed. I’ve been here a few years now and when I first came Rangers hadn’t beat Celtic for a few years and never got the results we’re getting now. Now there’s players here who have done it, who have won a few games and it’s not about beating Celtic, it’s about going and winning silverware.

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"Because a few of us have been here a few years now, it’s not a new team anymore, we know what’s expected and I think we now know what the league is about and it’s starting to show.

“We’ve won Old Firms in both years I’ve been here so far but we haven’t backed it up with a run of winning games. I can see there has been a mental change within our changing room that winning an Old Firm game isn’t enough.”

Goldson, speaking to talkSPORT, also revealed his surprise at the pre-match online leak of the Celtic starting line-up which incensed the champions’ manager Neil Lennon.

“We went into the game, even in our pre-match meeting, we thought [Christopher] Jullien would play, we thought [Odsonne] Edouard would play,” said Goldson.

“I think a few of us saw that (leaked) team but we didn’t really believe it. In an Old Firm you can never trust anything. We actually went into the game thinking Jullien and Edouard would play.

“Truthfully, I got on the coach and I got a message from one of my best mates who plays down south for Doncaster who said [Stephen] Welsh was playing and Edouard wasn’t playing. I messaged him back saying, ‘good one – we’ll see when we get there’. When we got there, the team was true.”

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