THERE are parallels between the fortunes of Jon Flanagan and Rangers this season. He is confident next term will be more successful for himself and Steven Gerrard’s side.
The opening weeks and months of the campaign were encouraging for Flanagan as he played his part in Rangers’ European run and helped the Light Blues made a steady start to their Premiership campaign.
Recent times have been more difficult, however. As Rangers have seen their silverware ambitions steadily drop off, Flanagan has had to watch on from the bench or the stand.
He has never lost faith in himself or the team, though, and returned to the side against Hearts on Wednesday night and produced an accomplished showing in a routine 3-0 victory.
“I’m 100 per cent behind the manager,” Flanagan said after Rangers took another step towards securing second spot in the standings. “I want to be here, I want to be a part of it, I want to get a new contract and be here for many years.
“I’m 100 per cent wanting this. It’s been tough being out of it, everyone wants to play every game.
“But it’s not going to be possible. We’ve got a big squad with everyone fighting for places. But when called upon you’ve just got to perform well and try and stay in the team.
“I’ve spoken to the manager many times and he’s just said keep going, keep working hard and wait for your opportunity.
“He’s always spoken to me and I’ve asked him when I’ve needed to know things. I can have that relationship with him. I worked with him as a player and I know what he’s about, he knows what I’m about. We’ve definitely got that relationship.
“I’m a positive person, I’m mentally strong, I’ve never thought it wasn’t going to work for me here.
“You’re not always going to have good games and I’m the first to know when I don’t play well. But I’m always positive, always train hard. I’m always trying to be ready for when the opportunity comes.”
First half goals from Jermain Defoe and Connor Goldson broke Hearts’ resistance at Ibrox before Scott Arfield made sure of an important victory just after the break.
At the other end of the park, Flanagan was steady at left-back as Rangers ended a run of five games without a clean sheet and a win.
After losing at Parkhead on Sunday, it was a perfect response.
READ MORE: Jermain Defoe determined to 'achieve something special' with Rangers next season
Flanagan said: “Everyone’s been a bit down on the dumps since the Celtic defeat, everyone’s been a bit hurt by it. But, the only way to put things right was to beat Hearts and get the three points.
“The manager drilled that into us and the lads performed. It was about pride against Hearts and giving something back to the fans. We had to put things right and get the win.
“We’ve been working hard on the training pitch every day, the manager’s always telling us what to do and where we can improve. I think it showed tonight.
“I think we’ve said before that we’ve shot ourselves in the foot consistently throughout the season.
“Consistency’s been the big one.
“But we’re all still together, we’re still positive and we just need to keep going until the end of the season.
“The season could’ve been a lot better. But there are six games to go and we can’t change anything now. We’ve just got to finish the season as strongly as possible and keep going.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel