It’s funny how quickly football arguments turn into a scoreboard exercise with zero context. You hear Celtic fans boasting about league titles as if Rangers were right there competing every season, when the reality is we spent years rebuilding from a position no club wants to be in. Of course it was going to take time to get back to anything resembling our old dominance. That’s not excuses, it’s just the shape of the thing.

The years out the way still count in the story

When a club’s dragged down the divisions, you don’t just click your fingers and return to the top as a finished product. You’re trying to stabilise, get the wage bill sensible, build a squad that can handle different demands, and then step up again once you’re back where you belong. That’s why the “look how many we won” patter from across the city can be a bit rich at times. It’s not that titles don’t matter. They obviously do. It’s that the full picture matters as well.

And even once Rangers were back in the Premiership, the gap wasn’t just about a starting XI. It was about the overall structure, the depth, the habits, and the club being run with a clear football plan. That’s what makes the next part so frustrating.

Why 55 should have been a launchpad

For many supporters, the real missed opportunity isn’t what happened during the rebuild years, it’s what happened right after we got back on top. Steven Gerrard delivering title 55 should have been the moment Rangers kicked the door off and started setting standards again. Instead, it felt like we didn’t properly build on it.

You could see the moment needed real backing and real momentum. Strengthen early, keep hunger in the squad, and make it clear that one title wasn’t the end goal. The frustration comes from the sense that the board at the time didn’t push on with the dominance it should have. When you’ve finally got your hands on the momentum, you cannot let it slip through your fingers.

Ferguson v Brown is not even a debate

Then there’s the player chat that gets thrown about as if folk have forgotten what they watched. The idea that Scott Brown was a better midfielder than Barry Ferguson is wild to me. Brown was a competitor, no question, and he did his job for Celtic. But Barry Ferguson was a different class of footballer for Rangers, the kind of player who dictated games and carried responsibility.

Truth is, Brown also benefited from being in a Celtic side that had a relatively smooth run for a chunk of that period while Rangers were a shambles. That doesn’t make him a bad player, it just means the environment helped. Ferguson, on the other hand, was the standard-bearer. That’s the difference.

Rangers have to stop looking back with regret and start acting like a club that learns. Context matters, but so does what you do when you finally get your moment again.

Written by Sir Walter Smith OBE: 30 January 2026

Tags: tactics