According to one analyst, Rangers’ suffering would be excruciating in part because of Celtic.
The Hoops are now the overwhelming favorites to win the domestic trophy and a treble after Queen’s Park pulled off one of the competition’s biggest upsets, winning 1-0 at Ibrox to raise concerns about Rangers manager Philippe Clement’s future. One analyst believes there is a Celtic component to why Rangers’ elimination from the Scottish Cup will hurt so much.
Derek Ferguson, a former midfielder who was on co-commentary duty, believes that his ability to prevent Celtic from winning three titles again is adding to the suffering. Rangers are currently out of the remaining domestic cup tournaments, trail the Hoops by 13 points in the Premiership, and lost to their fiercest rivals in the Premier Sports Cup final.
On Sportsound, he stated: “I think it’s a big 20 minutes for Philippe Clement with about 20 minutes to go.” The title was taken just before Christmas, therefore it’s gone from the title race. He started out this afternoon with a good team to do the job, and since they haven’t done it, he is under a lot of pressure. That’s why you’re left with the cup.
“I’ll go back to why this competition was so important: it was an attempt to prevent Celtic from winning the treble, which would mean a lot to the fans because, of course, they are your biggest rival and you don’t want to see them go and do that.”
This is the reason I assumed the team would have gone out this afternoon and completed the task, but they were incredibly indolent. They didn’t, therefore you had to go and make things happen.
Experienced SPFL manager Ian McCall was on similar lines as he jumped into the debate after watching the match from the press box. He said: “Every time Clement becomes under pressure they do something really good and you know the European thing and getting into the last eight and it was calming.
“You see improvement in that you now have two or three players that appear to be able to continue using the player selling model, but I’m not suggesting that you’ve seen development in terms of results. However, when you’re sitting 13, 14, whatever, behind your primary competitors for the crown, this kind of outcome…
“I never call for anyone to get the bullet because I still haven’t returned to football, but he must be under serious now.” I believe that tomorrow morning’s cacophony will be the loudest it has ever been.
