A hung jury and hostile witnesses. That’s what it looked – and sounded – like inside the court of public opinion at Ibrox on Thursday night.
There was one moment of levity that cut across the palpable tension of the occasion. Funny if you were a neutral observer, that is. I predicted here last week that the very sight of Hibs’ Aiden McGeady would mean he would get it “tight” from the home crowd for his past history, which included a time with the team across the road on the other side of the city. But I wasn’t prepared for a couple of things.
First of all, the crescendo of booing that accompanied Aiden’s arrival off the subs’ bench in the second half was pantomime comical. McGeady left the team across the road on the other side of the city 12 years ago and has since played for Spartak Moscow, Everton, Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, Charlton Athletic and now he’s at Hibs.
There would have been teenagers at the game who would therefore have needed a diagram drawn for them to explain who Aiden was and why the sight of the Republic of Ireland international was so provocative for their elders. But it all vouched for a crowd working off a short fuse.
Secondly, I invented the phrase about the team across the road from the other side of the city as a lighthearted comment on how some people can get so intense about the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers that they can’t bring themselves to mention the name of the team they don’t support.
But I didn’t think for one moment Rangers’ manager Michael Beale would come up with a suggestion of his own and refer to the club he’s going after for the league title as the “other team.” It’s not very respectful to a fellow member of the manager’s union, Ange Postecoglou, is it?
Beale has no need to ingratiate himself with the Rangers fans by going down a road that doesn’t need to be travelled by a man in his position. And he must by now understand he’s got more to concern him than calling Celtic by their name.
The storm of booing that came after the referee had blown for half-time, at which stage Hibs were 2-1 in front, was as informative as it was loud. Clearly, Beale has still to convince every member of the jury he’s the right man for the job he has been given.
The visit to Pittodrie on Tuesday night will be another quickfire examination of what he’s all about. He’ll need to hope Alfredo Morelos once again confounds logic – like he did when he scored the winner against Hibs in midweek.
The Colombian still being at Ibrox now, after signing in 2017 as a 21-year-old from HJK Helsinki, is an obvious failure of Rangers’ business model. He was brought to Ibrox to be improved and sold on for big money. That ship has sailed.
The time to do business was at the end of season 2019/20 when he had scored 29 goals to add to the 30 in the season before. Now his contract is running down and his transfer value is a fraction of what it once was.
Do they have no scales for weighing players at Ibrox or the Auchenhowie training complex? How can Morelos still not look in peak physical condition after a five-week break from action?
But Beale will, in all probability, rely on him against Aberdeen. The player might be a mix of liability and mystery but he still delivers winners.
The manager needs that kind of reassurance after a shaky start. The Rangers fans were looking for a statement on Thursday night. They got an IOU instead. And they’ll be taking it with them to Pittodrie, along with the short fuse.
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