Alex McLeish, the former Rangers and Hibs manager, believes that the Ibrox club will look to exploit any lingering mental trauma still at the forefront of Alan Stubbs’ side when the teams meet at Hampden for this afternoon’s William Hill Scottish Cup Final.
McLeish was an Aberdeen player under Sir Alex Ferguson when the Pittodrie men lifted the Scottish Cup after defeating a shattered Hearts side who had been pipped to the league title a week earlier by Celtic on a dramatic final day of the 1985-86 season.
And he recalled that Ferguson had the Dons players go out and accentuate the psychological effects of that defeat – a lead that McLeish thinks the Rangers players will copy after Hibernians’ painful final minute play-off defeat to Falkirk last week - a result that confines them to at least another season in the Championship.
“It’s looking like 1986 all over again,” said McLeish. “Hearts lost the league title on the last day and were utterly shattered mentally when they came to play us in the Cup Final the next week.
“There are similarities with Hibs.
"I remember the gaffer telling us to commiserate with the Hearts players in 1986.
"We always want to get to the stadium first, that was a big thing for us.
"So we met them in the stadium and there was a bit of talk going on about what had happened at Dundee.
"We were saying, 'Can't believe what happened last week' and 'how did you feel?'
"It was wee Robbo [John Robertson] and these guys. You could see the heads slumping as soon as we started talking.
"Even during the game, I said to Sandy Clark 'That must have been a gutter last week'.
“We just never let Hearts get started. It looked like they were labouring and had a hangover from that last game. It does take it a lot out of you.”
And McLeish believes that lifting Hibs after that defeat will be arguably the biggest challenge of Stubbs’ managerial career.
Part of his strategy to prepare his players will doubtless lie in the fact that Hibs beat Rangers 3-2 last month in a game that was billed as a dress rehearsal for this afternoon’s game, but McLeish admits to being intrigued as to how he will go about getting their heads up and their minds ready.
Certainly, McLeish, who managed both clubs, would expect Rangers to win the game but he has admitted that there is some interest in how Stubbs get his players hyped up for the meeting with the Ibrox side.
“Alan will have one of the biggest challenges of his managerial career. If he can pull it off it will be a Leicester job. It would be a [Claudio] Ranieri situation.
“He has to show the players evidence they have beaten Rangers in the past - and show them how they did it.
“He’ll have his own methods and it would be good to be a fly on the wall in that dressing room to see how he goes about it. Stubbsy is big on the psychological sides of things and that will be a huge factor.
“If I was doing it I would be showing the players the positives in the performances against Rangers. There will be players thinking, ‘I never knew we were so good in that game’. That’s the way I would do it but Stubbsy will have his way.”
For Mark Warburton, this afternoon’s game is an opportunity to consolidate a season in which he has taken Rangers into the top flight and enhanced his reputation with a win over Celtic on route to the Cup Final.
However, failure against Hibs would end the season on a sour note and there is some interest in how the Ibrox side cope with being the overwhelming favourites.
Having seen off Celtic in the semi-final there is a feeling that Rangers might have hit their peak and certainly, results in the aftermath of that win were not particularly convincing.
"It's a huge game for Mark Warburton too,” said McLeish. “When it's Rangers' name you expect them to win the trophy. For Hibs, it's 114 years without the Scottish Cup and it's massive for them.
"You are always anxious about finals like this because you are wondering how they will bounce back.
"Rangers won't go into the final thinking, 'The Hibs players won't be up for it'.
"They will know that they can hit the heights they did earlier in the season.”
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