This summer is offering a new sensation for many younger Rangers supporters. It’s simultaneously exciting and terrifying, a wonderful feeling that your brain suddenly lurches to check. It is, of course, supreme confidence that our team are going to deliver this season and it has been so long since we’ve had it that many are, naturally, a bit uncomfortable.
Few supports have had as many hefty boots in the toilet parts than we have experienced over the last decade. Simply put, we’ve been hurt too many times before.
It's a bit different for us older Bears. We know the hubris. The youngsters are (so far) merely adopting it: we were born in it, moulded by it. Allusions to disappointing movies aside, it feels like the return of an old friend who you know is a bad influence but you really enjoy hanging about with. I grew up in the 90s. I’ve been asked by fans who didn’t experience it what it was like. Well, the short answer is: like this.
This current Rangers side, when fit and up to speed, are a very good football team. We have several exciting playmakers, goalscorers, creative players and a solid defence. While transfer business has been minimal to this point, we have added two quality players in Lundstram and Sakala. At the time of writing, none of the invincibles who played a big part have departed. The management team are settled, confident and quite clearly have plans this season for the next evolution of the playing style (as witnessed by the recent experiments to get Tavernier and Patterson in the same XI, for example). We are, in short, in a good place.
READ MORE: For another slice of 1990s style hubris read our salute to the genius of Brian Laudrup
That cannot be said for our main rivals. No matter which way you look at it – and there are several media outlets holding it at a funny angle and squinting – 'OneClubSince1888' have had one of those glorious periods I thought had been left back in the days of a Hooch in Archaos.
A very public, elongated chase for a manager ending in glorious failure. An appointment of an, ahem, undiscovered genius found in the prized Asian managerial market. A transfer policy that at best might be called random. Said new manager already griping about the board. Add in the modern bonus of social media giving us access to the type of deluded lunatics who back in the 90s would have been found only in pubs we wouldn’t go to, it’s tremendous fun.
However, that’s where the caution comes in. I genuinely believe only Rangers can stop Rangers this season. If the squad continues to work hard, does what it’s good at, maintains the standard they set themselves in 20/21, they will win this title and with a bit to spare. There are so many fantastic opportunities coming up. A real shot at making the Champions League and taking on the best in the world in front of a packed Ibrox. Two goes at ending the poor cup record. Most importantly, the chance to retain THEIR title and put to bed any nonsense about it being a fluke (how can winning it by 25 POINTS be a fluke for Laudrup’s sake?)
This is where my confidence overcomes my cowardice though. I believe this Rangers team – and more importantly, this Rangers management team – are just beginning their run. Eventually, like all runs, it will plateau and then others will have a better opportunity to catch us. I just don’t happen to see it happening any time soon. There’s little doubt the taste of success that the club experienced last season has made them all hungry for more. Repeated success can lead to bloating after a while, but I don’t even think we’ve finished our starter yet.
Time will tell and, let’s face it, if I’m wrong here I’m going to have this article thrown at me with more regularity than we saw barriers being hurled in car parks last season. I just really think this squad is going to deliver for us again. They’re too young, too focused and too hungry for the hubris to hammer them just yet.
Meanwhile, as a fan, all I need is my hair back and Terry Cassidy to show up in a leased Mondeo to start questioning if we really have gone back to the days of Britpop and Tony Blair.
You can hear more from David on the Heart and Hand podcast. Subscribe here for as little as £1.50 a month or listen free to the flagship shows on all good podcast platforms.
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