DARREN COLE played for Rangers when they rubbed shoulders with the cream of Europe in the Champions League - now he reckons they are not even among the best in the Championship.
The defender made his first Livingston appearance in Wednesday's narrow 2-1 loss at Hibs and is aiming to compound former club Rangers' misery on the pitch when he returns to Ibrox tomorrow. The 23-year-old came through the youth set-up at Murray Park and made an unforgettable debut in 2010 when he came on as a substitute in the 1-1 Champions League group clash away to Turkish side Bursaspor.
The current Rangers team, which is stumbling towards the play-offs following three successive draws, is a shadow of the side from that era and Cole reckons the Lions can cause an upset on Saturday. He said: "There are still a few boys there from my time at the club - I played in the Champions League with Kyle Hutton.
"It shows how things have changed - from the Champions League to the Championship. I'm definitely looking forward to going back and hopefully we can get points, especially the way Rangers are playing just now.
"They're scraping results or dropping points. Even our gaffer Mark Burchill said on Wednesday that we were so close to Hibs, so we should definitely take something from Rangers.
"Hibs are the team who have been the best in the league, other than Hearts. Hibs are better than Rangers on current form, so if we can run them close we should be able to take something from Rangers."
Even though Cole, who spent the second half of last season at Morton after leaving Ibrox in August 2013, believes Hearts and Hibs are stronger than Rangers, he still expects his old club to mount a serious challenge for promotion.
He added: "They've still got the players to pick up results, easily. The players need support, they're in a rut in their heads.
"As soon as they get one win they will probably be better. I know the pressures of playing for Rangers. They go out every week to win, it's been like that for years. But with everything that's gone on over the last three years, they're finding it hard to win."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article