What a weekend. What a beautiful Sunday. What a day for birthday boy, John Lundstram. It feels absolutely ecstatic. I’m absolutely loving it. I want to do 25 hand stands and dance around the garden... It’s not quite a helicopter changing direction but it’s a significant shift in the pendulum.
When I wrote my last article after our victory against Ross County I said “if we continue to pick up three points it’s only a matter of time before we top the league” but I wasn’t expecting it to be one match day later. I intended to mention last time that both clubs could amass a points tally of 103. Impossible for both clubs to do so because of the Old Firm double header but I did doubt either team will do so and that’s been proven this weekend. There will be more points dropped. More twists and turns. We have a title race. A genuine title race and I’m very excited for the next game, and the next.
The first half against St Johnstone was a tough watch. As expected, the pitch was having a big impact on any attempt to play football but Mohamed Diomande stepped up and hit a screamer to take us into half time with a one goal lead - that’s why we brought him here and will pay a significant obligatory fee to make his loan deal permanent.
Philippe Clement showed at half time that he can see what we all see and subbed Scott Wright for Dujon Sterling who impressed in another new role upon his return from suspension but it was James Tavernier AGAIN who grabbed the headlines. He converted two high pressure penalties to give us a resounding lead. Firstly, I’m not sure why the referee didn’t award them in real time and even more surprised that Craig Levein could argue with them but this is Scottish football. Today’s two goals means James Tavernier is now on 120 competitive goals for Rangers and equals the legendary John Greig’s record. He is now only one goal away from becoming our all time leading goal scoring defender and worthy of his hall of fame induction.
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We had a number of other big chances to score more goals, Cyriel Dessers the enigma strikes again - or in this case fails to strike, but we sit top of the league on points and have a better goal difference to our nearest challengers.
We are on a fantastic run of form, we have belief and we have momentum on our side. We are only one more victory away from matching our best winning run since 96/97 when we won nine in a row. But we have a tough group of fixtures on the horizon. Philippe Clement has warned there is a long way to go. This will be a big test of character for Rangers and Celtic. It takes a different mentality to lead the table, as it does to be the team chasing.
We now have one week to recover and prepare for Hearts coming to Ibrox next Saturday. They are on a great run of form themselves but this is our opportunity to go five points clear at the top with Celtic playing on Sunday. We need to just keep focusing on picking up 3 points in every game we play. But for now, let’s all enjoy this…WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE!
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