WHETHER or not Walter Smith and Mixu Paatelainen are smooching again after their spat during the recent Scottish Cup replay, they did at least reach accord at the end of this latest collision; both agreed that the 90 minutes of Premier League action
they and more than 50,000 others had just witnessed rarely rose above mediocrity.
Rangers these days seem, on a match-by-match basis, to provide powerful evidence that, in certain circumstances, succeeding can be more trying than failing. The Ibrox fans who acclaimed this 12th consecutive league victory did so once again with a large measure of relief, a feeling with which they have become uncomfortably familiar in recent weeks.
Given the barrenness of the previous two seasons, Rangers' generally unconvincing form during these closing stages of the campaign is entirely understandable. For the management, the players and their followers, desperate to regain the championship, it is largely a matter of ticking off the matches, the end unquestionably justified by the means.
There are resonances here of 1998, when an equally frantic Celtic, presented with an opportunity to prevent their fiercest rivals from achieving a record ten successive titles, staggered over the finishing line, two points ahead of a Rangers team who had been equally unimpressive.
Fatigue deriving from a crowded schedule will have much less to do with Smith's players' current ordinariness than the anxiety that is to be expected of footballers on the brink of achieving what had been widely regarded as an unlikely objective.
If Rangers do wrest the title from Celtic, their merit should be more fairly judged next season. First-time champions – and that is what Smith's newly-constructed team would be – more often than not grow into their status, their subsequent performances pointing up the deservedness of their triumph.
At present, Rangers are still scuffling to earn the right to the superiority complex that comes with pre-eminence. Smith has more experience of success, and the fluctuating standards by which it is achieved, than anyone else in the Scottish game. Like wine growers, he recognises that there are vintage and non-vintage years and, in all probability, privately concedes that 2008 may be one of the latter.
Clearly as relieved as his club's followers to have secured another three points from this visit by a Hibernian team who have been consistently difficult to beat – one defeat, one scoreless draw and three single-goal wins from five meetings this season – the Rangers manager acknowledged that they had not been impressively gained.
"There were quite scrappy periods in the match," he said, "but we got the win we were looking for more than anything else. We had to work very hard for it and that's how it's going to be from now until the end of the season.
"I keep telling the players in the dressing-room that there will be tiredness and that there will be scrappy spells in matches. That will happen, but, whether they're on from the start or on the bench, they just have to cope with it. That's what it takes to see it through."
In terms of their prospects of maintaining their lead in the championship, and of succeeding in the Scottish Cup and the Uefa Cup, it is encouraging for Rangers to know that, as well as their own spirit and commitment, the ball is running for them. Alex Ferguson himself has said often enough that high achievement is impossible without luck, and Rangers, typical of potential winners, have been enjoying a substantial share.
The break on this occasion came from another aberration by an opponent, the second in a week after the gift from Dundee United's Mark Kerr which allowed Kris Boyd to score Rangers' first equaliser in last weekend's CIS Insurance Cup final.
This time the Hibernian defender, Chris Hogg, was the benefactor, substitute Nacho Novo the beneficiary. Steven Davis's long, high, diagonal cross from the right had already eluded Novo and would have sailed off for a goal kick had Hogg, unfathomably, not chosen to stretch and head the ball straight back to the striker. The little Spaniard quickly drove it low to the right of Yves Makalambay from ten yards.
Rangers, however, were already ahead through Jean-Claude Darcheville's first-half strike and, even without Novo's extending their advantage, it could not be said with certainty that Hibs would have scored through their substitute, Dean Shiels, in the last minute.
Darcheville's was a brilliant finish, of a quality the match itself hardly deserved. Sasa Papac played the pass inside the full-back, Martin Canning, and Darcheville, coming in from the left at an acute angle, could see very little of the target, with Makalambay and Hogg standing as tall obstructions. The Frenchman, however, struck a ferocious right-foot drive high and just to the left of the goalkeeper, finding the only route to the net with stunning precision.
Shiels, who brought some energy to an otherwise lifeless Hibs midfield, had already caused one or two minor scares in the home defence before his chip over Allan McGregor came down off the crossbar and he followed up to drive the loose ball over the line. The goal arrived too late to offer the hope of another.
"We have to play much better than that," said an obviously displeased Paatelainen. "People talk about the Rangers players being tired, but we saw their midfielders first to almost every ball. They wanted it more and that's why they won.
"It was probably our best performance defensively here because we gave them hardly any chances, but if you're making individual mistakes as we did at the goals, it's very disappointing."
Man of the matchJean-Claude Darcheville (Rangers)
In a match that featured plenty of straining effort, but very little quality, contenders were not exactly thick on the ground. It is a measure of the general poverty that Darcheville's extraordinary finish for Rangers' first goal should be enough in itself to claim the award.
The full article contains 1018 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
