Scottish Sun pundit Jim Duffy believes Rangers’ victory over Celtic in December has made the team complacent, writing in his column for the paper today.
The form of Steven Gerrard’s side has not been good enough since the return from the winter break, having headed into 2019 on top of the world after a thumping win over the Hoops at Ibrox.
It’s left many questioning the attitude of the first-team squad and Duffy is no different.
Writing in The Scottish Sun today, the former Morton manager said:
For the supporters, beating Celtic — and beating them so comprehensively — was such a massive thing. Rangers hadn’t managed to win an Old Firm league fixture in seven years and psychologically it was a huge hurdle to overcome.
I think the fans thought, rightly or wrongly, that the team would just automatically kick on.
Sometimes that kind of mentality can seep through into the players. I think there’s an element of that where Rangers are concerned. Maybe the players just felt ‘well that’s us, we’re on a roll now’.
I’ve been in the game and in Scottish football long enough to know that’s never the case. The game up here isn’t as easy as some down south like to believe.
It’s an assessment that I can’t really disagree with. The mentality of this Rangers team can certainly be called into question given the matches we are losing or not winning this season.
We’ve dropped far too many points against teams that have lesser ability than us on paper. It seems we cannot be motivated to produce a ruthless performance without it being a much-hyped fixture.
Why aren’t the team up for the smaller matches? It’s a question that Steven Gerrard needs to find an answer for, because it’s going to cost us trophies again this season if it is not sorted out.