Red, White & Blue Order

Sunday the 8th of December 2019. That is when Steven Gerrards Rangers last lost an Old Firm game. Fast forward 6 Old Firms and 17 months later and Rangers have just skelped the other half of the Old Firm 4-1 in the final one of the season. 

That's despite missing Helander, Balogun, Katic, Patterson, Bassey, Jack, Zungu, and Arfield to either injury or suspension. That's despite having won the league 2 months ago. That's despite this being framed as Scott Brown's "Last Dance" (more on that later).

You could be forgiven going into this game if you were concerned we wouldn't perform to the high standards we've set over the course of the season. Plenty of Rangers teams in the past have won the league with games to spare and then just checked out on the rest of the campaign, often giving the other half of the old firm a glimmer of hope to take into the next season. 

Not this team though, and not in this fixture. Yes, the last few games haven't been great, and the cup exit to St Johnstone was a particular low. However, this team knows how much this fixture means to us, the fans. They know that we need these victories so that we can go to work the following day with the bragging rights. Best of all though, this team hates that lot.

You can see it with the utter contempt they have treated them with all season. It's a situation that lot have brought on themselves. All the years of lapping it up against inferior Rangers teams as we were rebuilding. Putting on stupid police hats, dancing in front of our fans, doing stupid little struts, tying scarves to goalposts, and aeroplane gestures.

PC bumfluff made a hasty exit at the end of last season having seen Kent tear him apart again and again in this fixture. He saw the writing on the wall. However his pals "Broony, Griff, and Snus Hiddink" still thought they were the kings of Scotland due to a Rangers post-Dubai collapse and zoom title.

I believe Gerrard and his Rangers team saw that, stored it up, and channeled that rage into a positive and we the fans are now reaping the benefits of that progress. Lennon did a runner as soon as it became a real possibility we were going to win the league in their ground. Leigh Griffiths is apparently so destroyed he refused to come on on Sunday and all that left was their glorious leader, their captain, and king gobshite Scott Brown.

Scott Brown has made a career out of laughing in the face of lesser opponents ever since Rangers were put down into the bottom tier of Scotland. When we came back up he saw fit to laugh and taunt our players and fans while we were a team of players that had just won the Championship and they were a squad that had had 4 unchallenged years of access to Champions League money.

He would do silly struts past the fans, do "get it up ye" gestures to us, laughed in the face of Morelos when he was sent off in a defeat, and so on and so on. Yet this last 18 months he has been reduced to a passenger, a spectator, and a liability in this fixture.

In the last two games alone Ryan Kent has sent him to pick up his dry cleaning while he's strolled past him. The man that has made a career out of laughing and taunting opponents was reduced to begging the referee to book Morelos for calling him a baby... way to prove him wrong Brown.

This fixture was pegged as his "Last Dance" by their fans, the same fans who also pegged the cup game as his last dance mind you. Well, his last dance was reduced to a 60-minute embarrassment, though to his credit he did play a lovely 1-2 with Morelos after Morelos had nutmegged him for his goal.

Rangers were simply outstanding on Sunday. McGregor was his usual, reliable self, pulling off an amazing save at 0-0 to keep Elyounoussi out. Goldson marshaled the defence, Barisic provided an outstanding cross for Roofe's second goal and Davis just simply strolled the game. That's Steven Davis who is 5 months older than Scott Brown and has also had an extended European campaign and still plays International football.

Roofe was a shock inclusion for most, however I personally have been defending him the last few weeks so was glad to see him in the line-up, and he rewarded Gerrard's faith with a double. Alfie has gone from being a joke to them to being a thorn in their side and Kent... Kent absolutely terrifies them. What a "panic buy" he has been. We bought him, they panic about him. 

I also don't think you'll find a single Rangers fan who wasn't absolutely delighted for Defoe to see him tear apart wonderkid Welsh and get his first Old Firm goal. I really hope we manage to figure out a way to keep him at the club in a reduced playing role but with an increased coaching capacity. After all, he still hasn't scored against Dundee United... 

But in all seriousness, he's averaged a goal every 101 minutes for us so I think he can still do a job if we can work out a deal that works for both sides, and he's done wonders for Alfie so it can only be of a benefit to have him tutor other young strikers. If he does leave though I four one (😉) will be delighted I was able to see him play for my club.

There are two things to come out of Sunday's emphatic victory that really show you just much the balance of the Old Firm has tipped in our direction. The first is that they have once again taken to having to blame their defeats on the referee. 

Big John Kennedy was straight into victim mode after the game, saying that the ref struggled and was perhaps too inexperienced to have been in charge of such a big game. Perhaps BJK is too young and inexperienced to have been in charge of such a big game because the only error I could see from the ref was the yellow card on Simpson, however if Simpson had then committed another blatant foul and been sent off we, as Rangers fans, would have said it was his fault and he should know better while he is on a yellow card. 

That's the difference between us and them though. We own our losses and defeats. They blame theirs on refs and masonic conspiracies. How a club has gone 133 years without ever losing a game legitimately is beyond me.

The other incident was when we reduced £50m AC Milan target Ajer to doing no-look passes to his keeper at 3-1... It served no purpose at all, other than to give him something to add to his highlight reel for when he's begging clubs to take him in the summer.

Can you imagine if Goldson was doing that if the scores were reversed? Gerrard would go off his nut.

The simple fact of the matter is, that with 5 wins and 1 draw in the last 6 Old Firms and a 23 point lead in the league we are well and truly the kings of Scotland, and Glasgow is currently Red, White, and Blue.

We've surpassed them so much that at present we're announcing signings for the summer window, welcome Fashion Sakala, and 69 days on from Lennon's scampering they've still yet to announce who their next manager is.

It's that kind of forward-thinking and planning from Gerrard and Ross Wilson that will help enable us to stay kings of the mountain for hopefully a long time to come. We've suffered the agony of defeat, the humiliation of hammerings, and the taunts from them lot. Now it is our turn to dish out what we received tenfold.

Drink it in fellow bears. This is our time once again.

The Rambling Ger

Twitter - @GerRambling

IG - TheRamblingGer