ARTHUR NUMAN, the former Rangers defender, has claimed the Ibrox club defying the odds to finish second would be meaningless as they remain in Celtic’s shadow.
With just six games left in the Ladbrokes Premiership season to go, Rangers sit in third place nine points behind Aberdeen. Yet for the Dutchman, it is the 35-point chasm between his old team and league champions Celtic that he has the issue with.
During a five-year spell in Glasgow, Numan won three league titles, four Scottish Cups and three leagues cup during a glittering spell both for the club and the former Oranje internationalist. It is with this mindset that he admits he struggles to comprehend the ambition to finish in second place.
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While the 47-year-old acknowledges the current Rangers team are in a different place, both physically and metaphorically, to the one he was a key part of, Numan was blunt about what should be acceptable to Rangers, their players and their supporters as he urged them to prioritise success in the Scottish Cup - and the upcmoming semi-final with Celtic - rather than second best in a one-horse Premiership race.
“They should focus on themselves and not look at Celtic,” he said. “Focus on your own game.
“The cup is very important, it is better to win the cup than finish second. It is all about winning trophies. You want to stand there at the end of the season and lift the silverware.
“Celtic have won the League Cup so the players will want to win the Scottish Cup. If I am in that situation, I think ‘OK, we have finished second’. But what does second mean? Second means f*** all. It is all about winning trophies and lifting silverware.
“Hopefully they can get a good result against Celtic [in the Scottish Cup semi-final] and go on and lift the trophy at the end of the season.”
While clearly ambitious in his desires for his old club, Numan is realistic about the timescales required to compete with Celtic on a sustained basis over a season.
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With the arrival of Pedro Caixinha comes a clean slate for Rangers to try and make the most from. The Portuguese got the dream result against Aberdeen on Sunday, a 3-0 win at Pittodrie, that will go some way to reassuring the suffering Ibrox support the man previously in charge of Al Gharafa could be the man to work wonders with a team which stagnated under Mark Warburton.
However, Numan knows Caixinha is not a miracle worker.
“That is too early,” said the man with 45 Netherlands caps about the prospect of Rangers stopping Celtic getting to seven in a row next season. “Hopefully they will do better than this year and make the gap a bit smaller. They showed in the last game that they could get a result at Parkhead so that was good for Rangers and gave everybody confidence. It was important for the semi-final as well.
“I don’t know much about him. When he was appointed, people were saying ‘who is he?’ and wondering what was happening. But it was the same when I signed for Rangers.
“You have to give him some time. He will have a vision in his mind. I don’t know exactly how he wants to play but I am sure he will want to entertain the crowd and play attacking football.
“When I came in, Dick had Bert van Lingen but the good thing was that John Greig was there. The fact that someone who knew the club was great.
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“When we went away to a hotel, we could listen to his stories, he could tell us about the club and he was very important for Dick and Bert telling them to do this or do that.
“It takes time. You can’t expect for a new manager to come in and for miracles to happen.”
Numan reckons belief is a key facet to the make-up of any team wishing to not just get success, but sustain it.
“Alex McLeish took over from Dick Advocaat after the PSG game and we won the League Cup and the Scottish Cup then the Treble the next season,” he added. “You have to have belief in yourself.
“It gives you confidence when you win a trophy and it is good for the atmosphere in the dressing room. You want to win trophies so if you can’t win the league then you have to win something else.
“Even if we hadn’t won those trophies, we would have believed we could win the league the next season because it is another start. When Martin O’Neill took over, he won a Treble and a Double. Then all of a sudden Alex took over and we won two trophies and then the Treble. Every season is a new start with new players but this season, when Rangers can’t win the league, they have to try and win a cup.”
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