Richard Gough hailed James Tavernier’s 100 goal haul for Rangers as incredible - but insisted the current Ibrox skipper would swap the personal accolade for a fistful of silverware.
Tavernier has lifted only two major trophies – the league in 2021 and last season’s Scottish Cup – in eight years at the club and nine-in-a-row skipper Gough reckons that’s a paltry return for a team of Rangers’ stature. And while the former defender is astounded by Tavernier’s strike rate of 101, he is adamant gongs would mean more to him than goals.
Gough, speaking on the Daily Record’s Off The Record podcast, said: “I look at Tavernier playing as a full back and scoring more than 100 goals for the club. That’s unbelievable - an incredible achievement. But he’s only managed to get a couple of trophies. I would guarantee he’d rather have 10 trophies in his pocket than 100 goals. That’s what you’re remembered for.
“I won 18 trophies with Rangers and I look at our team now and wonder where we are going to get the trophies from. It has been sad for our club since 2012. We were worried about losing everything at that time.
“Dave King coming in managed to save it. In 2014 he asked me to get involved and we steadied the ship a wee bit. Gerrard was a marvellous personality to get into the club. He came with high standards and we managed to get the championship, but it seems to have gone back a wee bit.
“We managed to get to the European final, which was incredible with the team that we had. Van Bronckhorst did a remarkable job getting through those European games and we hoped to kick on from that. Then we sold Aribo, we sold Bassey and we never replaced them with quality. Football is about your players.
“Back in the day, Souness would tell me: ‘Goughie, I signed you, signed Butcher and signed Roberts - I’m not going to tell you boys how to defend.’ If you can put 11 very, very good players together, you’ll be fine.
"I look at managers talking about all these formations nowadays, but if you’ve got great players, most of the time you’re going to win the games. Celtic have got better players at the moment, and I don’t like saying that.“
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