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The National (Scotland)
The National (Scotland)
Sport
Ewan Paton

Tavernier's Rangers record missing 'what you're remembered for', says Gough

Richard Gough insists current Rangers captain James Tavernier would swap his 100 goals for his trophy haul.

Tavernier recently netted a century of goals for the Ibrox club during their 3-2 derby defeat to Celtic.

Despite his tremendous personal achievements in a Gers shirt though, the right-back has only lifted two major trophies during his time at Ibrox.

And while Gough is astounded by Tavernier’s exact strike rate of 101, he is adamant trophies would mean more to him than goals.

The ex-Scotland international told the Daily Record: “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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