Welcoming Celtic to Ibrox on Saturday for our final Premiership clash of 2018, Rangers took a fully deserved 1-0 victory on the day as midfielder Ryan Jack broke the deadlock in the 30th minute.
With it being our first Old Firm victory in 13 attempts, the result was massive and shouldn’t be underplayed by anyone as it does mark what everyone hopes is a real turn for us again, even if there are plenty of improvements still to be made.
For 26-year-old Jack, scoring his first Rangers goal, it was obviously a massive match on a personal level but speaking to Sky Sports following the game, he remained focused on the bigger picture – our first league victory over them since March 2012 and the end of their 12 game run.
“We’ve overcome a psychological hurdle by winning today. Around the city, wherever you go, everyone says they don’t care about other results – as long as you beat Celtic because it’s a must-win. So there’s an added pressure, no doubt. But to a man today, we dealt with that perfectly and we were well deserving of the three points. We had meetings in the last few days where the manager gave us belief. He told us we had nothing to fear, we are at home with 51,000 people behind us. He told us to play with freedom and do what we do every day in training. We did that and we’re delighted.”
Plenty of confidence should be taken from the result, but moreso, the actual performance on the day as we were clearly on top and at points they were left chasing shadows and if we can make that our baseline in the second half of the campaign now, there is definitely a title battle at play.
It is what it is though, another massive step forward for the club as we look to get back to our best and where we want to be.