One of the complaints thrown at the Rangers board and recruitment team is that there are still too many players from the beginning of Steven Gerrard’s revolution still at the club and, if they are fit, some of them will be starting again at Hampden on Sunday.
But, this should be seen as a good thing.
We all know what happened in the league cup final in 2019, described as an “onslaught,” it was as dominant an Old Firm display as we have seen from either side over the last decade, Fraser Forster’s man of the match award telling anyone who didn’t watch the game everything that they need to understand about how it panned out. Tom English on the BBC’s match report describing the towering Geordie’s impact perfectly:
“Forster shouldn’t just get one winner’s medal, he should get all of Celtic’s winners’ medals. Save upon save, defiance upon defiance. He broke Morelos’ heart out there.”
In Allan McGregor, James Tavernier, Borna Barisic, Connor Goldson, Ryan Kent, Glen Kamara, Ryan Jack and, in particular, Alfredo Morelos, there is a core of this weekend’s squad that know what it feels like to come up short in an Old Firm final and should use it as motivation to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
When Alfredo Morelos scored tonight, he immediately apologised to Rangers fans for his missed penalty last weekend 💙
Class from El Bufalo 👏 pic.twitter.com/a3AdeSGosR
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) December 12, 2019
Remember Morelos apologising to fans for missing a penalty that would have made it 1-1? He didn’t have to do that but he obviously felt like he had let everyone done. With Kemar Roofe unlikely to start now, if he even makes the squad, the Colombian has the perfect chance to put things right.
The players mentioned before – except for McGregor – have been branded as serial losers in the past due to the lack of trophies that they have won since 2018, as with Morelos, Sunday should be seen as an opportunity to be grasped with both hands not an occasion to be feared.