Can you imagine, with the benefit of hindsight, what it would have looked like if Rangers had stuck to their original plan to accompany Celtic to Australia for the Sydney Cup?
A flight Down Under in the immediate aftermath of the draw against St Mirren which put Giovanni van Bronckhorst ’s side nine points behind Celtic at the top of the Premiership table? And cast huge doubt over the manager’s future without enticing the Ibrox board to formulate any form of official response to furious speculation.
It wasn’t even the board who took the decision to pull out of the contract covering the trip to Ange Postecoglou’s adopted homeland, where he has been feted like visiting royalty. It was the Rangers fans who took the decision for them through a series of public demonstrations that underlined their anger over the very idea of being the support act for the reigning champions of the Premiership.
And therein lies the problem at present inside Ibrox. It seems there is no-one at any level of the club’s operation who is capable of making the right call about anything. It’s not as if the start of the World Cup today will distract the Rangers support. They’ll look at Wales’ squad for tomorrow’s game against the USA and see it contains a Dundee United player,Dylan Levitt. But not the Welshman, Rabbi Matondo, Rangers paid Schalke £2.5m to buy in the Summer. He didn’t make the cut for Qatar.
The same Matondo who sat on the subs bench in Paisley last weekend and never came off it. Even when van Bronckhorst was, metaphorically speaking, lying with his throat cut in the closing minutes of a game gone seriously wrong, he chose to put on an untried teenager rather than one of the signings casting substantial doubt over Rangers’ recruitment department.
And then there’s the judgement shown by certain players in the midst of, what shall we call it, torment, turmoil or toxic times?
Delete whichever is inapplicable. Ilooked up the word ‘optics’ in Spanish, the first language spoken by Alfredo Morelos – it is ‘optico’ if you’re interested. The pity is Morelos didn’t think in his native tongue before posting a photograph of himself on social media while having it large, as they say in the fleshpots of Playa Mayapo in Northern Colombia.
It was an insensitive act reminiscent of his recent behaviour on the field. He suits himself and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks, neither his team-mates nor his manager.
Alfredo might as well have captioned the photo with the words: “Only a few more weeks until I can sign a pre-contract agreement with someone else.” Who that might be, on the other hand, might tax the imagination, given his present form and physical appearance. But that won’t pacify the fans back in austerity-hit Scotland who see themselves being mocked by the “I’m alright Jack” pose.
What’s Alfredo’s next move? Maybe a call to Piers Morgan to see if he’s interested in another televised interview with a foreign player who’s bored with his surroundings and needs to create a climate of unrest?
A ploy to facilitate a move somewhere where his talents, even though they are visibly on the wane, would be better
appreciated? Meanwhile, the disillusioned Rangers fans have taken to amusing themselves with fresh ways to denounce their team’s woeful performances while waiting for any form of responsibility to be taken for the state of affairs at their club.
One caller to the radio the other evening jokingly described the side’s style by saying: “The way they are playing may cause drowsiness.”
One man’s sedative is another man’s laxative as the current goings on unsettle the innards of the concerned. In the meantime, pass the pina colada, Alfredo.
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