What more is there to say about Steven Davis?
Britain's most capped international player with four league titles, three Scottish cups, three League cups and two European finals to his name. Steven Davis is rightly in the Hall of Fame. He epitomises what it means to be a Rangers legend in every sense of the word.
Most importantly, he always understood what it took to be a Ranger. He lived our dream through the eyes of a supporter. From the moment he arrived on loan under Walter, he was a hit. Classy on the ball and superb off it, Davo had a little bit of everything. He returned under Steven Gerrard as a seasoned Rolls Royce of a player, helping the club to 55 with a flawless season of performances.
That campaign, the most important of all, was arguably his best individually. It even included an overhead kick in an Old Firm meeting.
📅 What's your favourite Steven Davis memory? pic.twitter.com/nM9s6e7TbV
— The Rangers Review (@RangersReview55) January 25, 2024
A second European final in 2022 under Giovanni van Bronckhorst followed before the Scottish Cup returned that summer. Every recent success at Rangers has seen Davis right at the centre.
I’ll miss him. He was a tremendous player and an even better man to speak to off the pitch. Enjoy your retirement Davo, you've earned it. Thank you for your service.
Now, to matters on the pitch. If any Rangers fan wasn’t slightly worried about the return to action from the winter break, I’d suggest they were being a little bit disingenuous.
For me, there was slight trepidation after the New Year Old Firm defeat.
How would the team perform? Would they get back into a rhythm quickly? Would there be another slow start after a winter break?
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Let’s face it, the bounce game against Hertha wasn’t a great watch, but it was just a bounce game after all. We lost sloppy goals to Copenhagen, but we needed that level of opposition with European ties on the horizon.
We have blown our title chances after returning from the winter break before - that’s why I was impressed with our win at Dumbarton. Everything was set up for a slip-up. I remember during Gerrard's second season after beating Celtic at Parkhead we played Stranraer on a Friday night at Ibrox following the winter break. It was Nathan Patterson’s debut but that was the only bright spark in a laboured 2-0 victory.
That set the tone and within weeks we had lost all hope in the league, Alfredo went AWOL and Hearts knocked us out of the Scottish Cup. The season before, we recorded our first league win over Celtic in years only to blow it at Kilmarnock in the first game back. The infamous Joe Worrall match.
We have plenty of history with a slip-up after Christmas. I would go as far as to say that as Rangers romped to 55, some weren’t fully relaxed because of those recent woes.
But at Dumbarton, there were no such issues, Rangers were very good in treacherous conditions and handled a tricky situation rather competently. It was a professional performance.
'Yes Stevie, but it’s only a Division Two side,' you might suggest and I totally get that argument. However, from my point of view I was happy with what we saw.
At Easter Road on Wednesday, Rangers blew Hibs away with relative ease. Tremendous strikes from Ridvan Yilmaz, Todd Cantwell and Cyriel Dessers capped a wonderful evening in Leith.
It was the kind of night that installs a feeling that maybe, just maybe, we are onto something. Everything we are seeing passes the eye test and there is a feeling that there's more to come.
We are getting into all the right positions and taking chances. The good thing? There's plenty of room for improvement. We need to be more clinical in the final third and that’s with seven goals since the return from the break under our belt.
The manner of the performance has been impressive both individually and collectively. We are getting in behind players and isolating them. We're seeing growth in the likes of Dujon Sterling and Ridvan.. That’s before we talk about the Dessers redemption arc...
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Then we have Mr Thursday night, John Lundstram, who is a regular in the post-match Man of the Match discussion. The players look confident, they look organised and they look on point.
The arrival of new faces is certain to add more quality and competition. The rumoured £4.5m arrival of Mohamed Diomande certainly screams of a club ready to back a manager who has impressed every one of us.
‘Philippe Clement’s Blue and White Army' rung out at Easter Road in midweek. No one is getting overexcited but there is a steely determination we are on the right track under this manager.
No let up Rangers, we go again and we go again strong. Make no mistake, it’s game on if they do.
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