The weirdest thing about watching Rangers take Celtic apart the other day is I’m still not too sure how I feel about it.
Of course I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it from my seat in the stand. This is the Rangers I’ve wanted to see for so long – full of energy, desire and aggression, swarming all over the opposition, snapping into tackles and springing attacks on them – time after time. It was relentless. It was rampant. It was what Rangers are supposed to be all about. I lapped it up. But a day or so on I’m still scratching my head and wondering how it’s even possible that the same group of players are still sitting 11 points off the pace.
So the overriding emotion right now is one of frustration. I still can’t believe they managed to leave five points behind against St Mirren and Motherwell at a time in the season when there was so much to play for. I honestly don’t know where those two performances came from because, up until that point, they had been building up a head of steam both domestically and in Europe.
But the manager made some changes to his starting XI on the advice of his medical department and, on the back of those decisions, Rangers offered up two first half performances which were simply nowhere near acceptable. And for which they are now paying such a huge price in terms of where the season goes from here.
We’ve all heard the debate over sports science and whether or not Philippe Clement has been guilty of paying too much attention to the stats and the data. Well if I was him at Easter Road on Sunday I would turn around to the same XI who started on Thursday and tell them to get back out there and go again – no matter what the laptops are saying.
Wrap them up in cotton wool, give them a warm down and a session with the masseur, then roll them back out against Hibs and demand the same again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against sports science. Far from it. The emergence of sports science helped me prolong my career as a professional footballer.
So there is no doubt in my mind there are benefits to be had from it. But – and it’s a big but – I’ve always believed that any player knows his own body better than anyone else.
The sports science is there to help get you out there on the pitch. It should never be a case of telling players not to go to their work on a Saturday afternoon. Playing football is what you are paid to do.
Yes, use whatever tools are available to help them stay fit and as close as possible to their physical peak. But don’t decide for them if they are able to contribute or not. That would have driven me daft as a player. I always knew what my body was capable of giving.
You should always go with your strongest possible team. If one or two of them are struggling with a slight injury then you bring them off at half-time or after 60 minutes. But in their time on the pitch you hope they’ve been able to make an impact and put the team in a winning position.
It didn’t matter how tired I felt when we were playing three games a week. My hand was up. I was always ready to go. I’m sure it’s the same for the players in the current squad. Which is why it’s so frustrating that they found themselves going into Thursday’s match trailing 14 points behind.
It was a massive game for the manager. Not only had he failed to get a win over Celtic in six previous derbies but he knew another defeat would take that gap to17 points.
And these are the kind of numbers which are difficult to survive. Not only that, there were a number of injuries to key players, including captain James Tavernier and vice captain Jack Butland. All this on the back of dropping five points against St Mirren and Motherwell in the space of a few days.
So yes, I could sense the enormous importance of the occasion when I was travelling to Ibrox. So for Rangers to come out the other side with a 3-0 win? I’m not sure anyone saw that coming and it could turn out to be a massive moment in the grand scheme of things, where Clement’s time in charge is concerned.
To be perfectly honest, that was as good and as complete a performance as I’ve seen from Rangers since the Belgian took over. And that should give him a bit of breathing space going into the new year.
Now, don’t think for a second that everything is rosy in the garden all of a sudden. There’s still a huge gap between my old club and the side sitting at the top of the table.
But if I had the chance to speak to that group of players then my message would be very clear, ‘You have to show that same level of energy, passion, commitment and drive every time you pull on that shirt. Nothing less can ever be acceptable at this club’.
I’m not talking about the way they moved the ball and cut through Celtic with the quality of their passing. You can’t expect to be at the top of your game every time you run out on to a pitch. Football doesn’t work that way.
But what you can demand is that everyone in that team is prepared to put the graft in. If they work as hard against every other team as they did against Celtic, then they’ll win a helluva lot more games than they’ll lose between now and the end of the season.
Does that give them a chance of winning the title? I’m not sure. The truth is Celtic will have to hit a brick wall between now and May for that to become a realistic possibility.
But it’s the job of these Rangers players to push them as far as they can. There is a responsibility on them to never give it up. Yes, it’s a long shot. But if Rangers go about their business with the attitude they showed on Thursday then who knows? It might not be a lost cause just yet.