Eleven words. Spoken in less than five seconds.
“For us to compete with them, it’s too much to ask.” That’s a sentence potentially even more damaging than the 4-0 trouncing Gio van Bronckhorst ’s Rangers players had suffered against Ajax in the 90 minutes which had just finished. A second 4-0 drubbing in the space of four days.
But it was the manager’s choice of reasoning that will continue to reverberate round Ibrox and Scottish football for days, weeks and perhaps until the Light Blues prove they CAN put up a resistance against Europe’s big boys. Loose lips sink ships they say and if van Bronckhorst isn’t careful his Dutch debrief could soon mark the unravelling of his hard work in returning Rangers to the crest of the European wave. Supporters won’t accept it. Players lacking in bravery - and there were plenty of those in Amsterdam - will hide behind them. And who knows what the board made of it all?
