Charlie Miller played in a Rangers team enriched by a league of nations.
Be it a great Dane, an English maverick or imports from Holland, Germany, Sweden and beyond, the Ibrox line-up boasted a plethora of foreign stars as they completed their quest for nine in a row. But ask Castlemilk kid Charlie and he’ll always insist it was the tartan thread running through Walter Smith’s glittering 90s line-up that ensured the club continually hit the standards demanded in Govan.
Miller walked into a dressing room boasting Scotland stars Richard Gough, Ally McCoist, Ian Durrant, Andy Goram, David Robertson, Stuart McCall and Gordon Durie. Born and bred a Rangers fan, he knew as well as any of those big names what was required to succeed in Glasgow. And it’s that local knowledge he believes is sorely missing from Philippe Clement’s modern-day Light Blues side.
The XI that edged past Motherwell to move into next month’s Premier Sports Cup Final contained just two Scots – Aberdonians John Souttar and Connor Barron. Miller said: “I think most of all, there’s not enough Scottish players in the team. Barron’s just come in as a young kid. I hope he goes on and does very well but we need the nucleus to know what the club is about.
“When I was there the nucleus of the team was probably six or seven Scottish players starting every week. Not just Scottish but Glaswegians as well, guys that supported the club growing up and knew exactly what the club meant. That’s a big miss. We’re not signing the best in Scotland.
“We’ve missed so many of the Scottish players in the last few years – Lewis Ferguson, Josh Doig, Aaron Hickey, Andy Robertson. There’s probably more than that. I just don’t know who’s watching these guys who we’re signing.”
Gers may have booked a showdown against Celtic in next month’s Premier Sports Cup Final but they’re a long way off being confident of a winning outcome. Trailing Aberdeen and Celtic by nine points, the Light Blues remain a deep mired in strife on and off the park.
Miller added: “It’s not great. From the top to the bottom it’s miles away. It’s a hard watch at the moment. Last week we’d the financial figures showing revenues up £90million but we’ve lost another £17m. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.
“And on the field we’ve not done any better. They did well against a very average Steaua Bucharest team who had their chairman pick their team. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? I was hoping it would be turned around but some of Clement’s quotes after games makes me doubt it because he’s obviously watched different games from me.
“He said that was the best they’ve played this season up at Pittodrie. Maybe for 10, 20 minutes they did OK. But a whole performance? No chance.
“We don’t play two up front. We needed to get a winning goal but in order to bring on a striker off the bench, he took off the other one. If you’re going to try and win the league you can’t do that. You have to gamble. You’re not going to win a league with Cyriel Dessers. He works his backside off but that’s the minimum you expect.”
Dessers did the business at Hampden on Sunday but only after spurning a string of huge chances in the opening 45. Clement will need the frontman to be far sharper on Thursday night when his side return to Europe League action against Olympiakos.
But for Miller, this week’s foreign duties are a distraction Rangers can do without while Clement’s struggles at home have left him clinging to his job. He said: “It’s no use. We need to be winning leagues and cups in Scotland. Europe just gets you the money to survive and to build a team. But we’re making mistakes on every front, from top to the bottom. You had the shambles with the stadium at the start of the season. Now people are saying, ‘Sack Clement’. But there’s nobody there to sack him.
“Clement’s agent is a friend of mine, Nico Vaesen. I played with him in Belgium. He’s a great lad. I was at the cup final when we beat Aberdeen last year. At that time we were a better team then than we are now. We all want them to do well. But Clement has to watch the games properly because he’s not looking at the same games that I’m watching. That’s three games away from home we’ve lost already – and we’ve drawn one at Tynecastle. I think we’re bottom of the table when it comes to away games. It’s not acceptable.”
“There’s been a lot of infighting at board level and for me they need to sort that out. If it’s not, we’re going to have another five years of this.”
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