For me, the mentality debate at Rangers isn’t some lazy buzzword people chuck about when a pass goes astray. It’s actually the biggest divider between what a player can do and what they do when the noise starts. Steven Naismith has spoken before about that exact point: fans will say a player is awful, yet people inside the building tell you they’ve been flying in training all week. That tells you the talent is there. The problem is coping with the shirt.

Training ground football and the real test

Training can be intense, and it can be competitive, but it’s still a controlled environment. There’s no crowd on your back, no immediate consequence to a mistake, and you’re not being judged by 50,000 folk who know exactly what Rangers standards look like. Matchday is different. At Ibrox, you don’t get five minutes to settle in. You’re expected to set the tempo, take responsibility, and keep going when things get edgy.

That’s why “pressure” matters. It’s not a vague excuse. It’s the reality of playing for a club where a sideways pass gets groans if it slows the game, and where one bad touch can snowball into a whole stand getting restless.

Signing from our league doesn’t guarantee anything

There’s also this idea that shopping in Scotland automatically buys you players who understand the demands. I’m not convinced. Just look at the list of lads we’ve signed from other SPFL sides over the years: Lafferty, Wallace, McKay, Black, Shiels, Nicky Clark, Jones, Danny Wilson, Holt, Halliday, Jack, Kamara, Wright and Souttar.

Now, you could argue a lot of those were among the better options available in the league at the time. But if the simple logic was “they know Scottish football, therefore they’ll thrive at Rangers”, we’d have progressed faster and more consistently off the back of those moves. It doesn’t work like that.

Nationality isn’t the point, coping is

The conclusion is pretty straightforward: a player’s passport doesn’t decide whether they can handle Rangers. The demands are the demands. Some cope straight away, some take time, and some never fully settle when the scrutiny ramps up.

What gives you hope is the last part of it: mentality can be developed. With the right environment, clear roles on the pitch, and leaders setting the tone, players can grow into it. But you can’t pretend it isn’t a factor. If ability alone decided it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.

Written by Angus1812: 30 December 2025

Tags: transfers