WRONG MOVIE?
With many of his star performers fluffing their lines and a blockbuster season looking unlikely, is it any wonder Gerrard now appears to be stuck in the...
ROCK bands can work the same groove for decades. Movie stars become all the more bankable by taking on familiar roles — be that action hero, romantic lead or viewer-friendly everyman invited to overcome daunting odds — and delivering, in effect, a note-for-nuance copy of half-a-dozen previous performances.
In the world of mass-market entertainment, only sport demands that its top performers consistently evolve. And that’s why we love it.
Sure, it might be a little tough for Rangers fans to take at the moment. The very idea that their team is being punished for standing still is treated, in some ultra-loyal corners of the support, as outright heresy.
But the smart punters saw this coming. Knew in their bones that a summer bereft of significant transfer spending could not be spun as anything other than a risky stratagem.
Having just ripped the Scottish
Premiership title away from rivals who had failed to build on a position of strength, how could they fail to fear a similar hesitancy undermining their own ambitions?
The more astute among the hard core will have nodded in agreement, then, when Steven Gerrard pointedly noted that the club ‘haven’t spent a penny’ during the last two transfer windows.
And those sensitive to the mood music around their club definitely understand that, although Gerrard might not get a Newcastle job capable of turning more experienced and successful heads than his, he isn’t quite as settled in Glasgow as he was a few months ago.
Where once it was taken as gospel that only the Holy Grail of taking over at Anfield could prise the former England and Liverpool great away from Ibrox, now a very different sort of orthodox thinking prevails.
Could you blame Gerrard for casting an envious eye elsewhere, when you consider the evidence apparent to anyone but the most blinkered?
In a flaky season of rising challengers and falling reputations, Gerrard’s men remain top of the table. They’re in that position on merit. But nobody would say that this Rangers team has a tight grip on their title. Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Hearts at Ibrox merely underlined that point. However much credit Robbie Neilson’s men deserve for plugging away and cranking up the pressure until the defending champions finally cracked, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the home team should have won. Equally obvious is that points were dropped because two of last season’s top performers missed their marks at crucial moments. No one is suggesting that Alfredo Morelos has gone full Odsonne Edouard in his approach to what, realistically, might be his farewell season in Scotland. The Colombian still looks eager and engaged. It’s just that, on Saturday, he kept fluffing his lines.
And then there’s the case of Allan ‘I’m still a big star, it’s the pictures that got smaller’ McGregor.
While the old man of the company did produce a couple of show-stopping moments to keep a persistent Hearts at bay, all anyone will focus on — as he well knows — will be the jaw-dropping error that handed the visitors their equaliser. One for the blooper reel.
Gerrard loves to quote stats in support of his team and, after this one, he could be heard rattling on about the scoring chances created by the home side. Unfortunately for him, a combination of Craig Gordon’s brilliance and the profligacy of his forward line meant the hosts were only 1-0 up at the break, John Lundstram scoring after 39 minutes.
Stuck on 99 goals for Rangers, Morelos pulled one shot wide and completely mis-hit an effort from 12 yards in the first half alone.
Hearts improved after the break and, as they changed formation in a late bid to play further up the park, the game really started to swing in the closing 20 minutes or so.
Morelos missed one sitter and barely connected with another chance, while Gordon was usually there to thwart anyone with the temerity to hit an effort on target.
Opposite number — and former Scotland rival — McGregor had been forced to make a couple of fine stops himself, not least as Barrie McKay raced in on goal following a brilliant run.
As Hearts continued to crowd the box with bodies and teasing deliveries, however, the entire Rangers backline seemed to shrink from the challenge. Maybe they were beginning to think that just seeing this one out, settling for a
1-0 win that should have been far more comfortable, would have to do.
Well, they didn’t count on McGregor coming for — and missing — a Gary Mackay-Steven corner with just seconds of the regulation 90 minutes left, the goalie’s howler allowing Craig Halkett to nod home at the back post.
Cue bedlam among the 900 Hearts fans who, gathered behind GMS in hushed anticipation as the ex-Celtic man whipped in the set-piece ball, now gave vent to their exhilaration.
Neilson was up the tunnel at this point, missing the celebrations because he’d been red-carded by referee Don Robertson just moments earlier — his protestations over Juninho Bacuna’s altercation with Stephen Kingsley deemed a little too excessive.
It was that kind of afternoon.
Eventful, dramatic, unpredictable. Well, up to a point. Plenty of the 49,960 paying spectators inside Ibrox could probably have guessed that an equaliser was coming.
We’d all seen this movie before. It had that whatshisname in it. You know, the guy from the thing. Always plays it kind of arrogant. Usually gets punished for it, too.