SCOTT Arfield has told his Rangers team mates if they can’t handle the pressure of playing for the Ibrox club they don’t deserve to be there.
But the midfielder, who scored twice in the William Hill Scottish Cup victory over Hamilton on Saturday, has backed every one of them to cope during the Scottish title run-in.
Steven Gerrard’s players have come in for criticism in recent weeks as they have lost to Hearts and drawn with Aberdeen and fallen seven points behind Ladbrokes Premiership leaders Celtic.
Arfield conceded the Govan club’s performances since play resumed following the winter shutdown last month haven’t been anywhere near good enough.
However, the Canadian internationalist believes the four goals they netted at the FOY Stadium at the weekend have helped get their supporters back onside.
And he is confident that Rangers can build on their back-to-back triumphs over Hibernian and Hamilton in the Ladbrokes Premiership match against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Wednesday.
Asked if he could explain the reasons for their dip in form, he said: “Probably not. As players we can’t over think it. That’s for other people to do.
“For us in the building it’s maybe not been as fluid in an attacking sense. The games at home, the Stranraer game, St Mirren game, the Ross County game, it’s not been as fluid.
“But if you score goals at the right time then people’s opinion changes. Goals like Joe Aribo’s changes the momentum and it changes people attitudes about a game.”
Arfield added: “Everyone signed up for this. When you sign for this football club you know it’s not going to be plain sailing. The pressure is on you to perform and quite rightly so. If you can’t handle it then you shouldn’t be here.
“As a team, staff and club we understand people’s frustration. They’ve every right to feel like that, but for us we can’t overthink it. It’s about passing the ball and scoring as many goals as possible.
“We don’t know (if Rangers have to win every game to win the league). I don’t have a crystal ball. We have an opportunity to win every game and that’s what we are thinking about.”
Rangers were missing their leading scorer Alfredo Morelos in their first four games after the winter shutdown due to suspension.
But the Colombian striker has since played against Aberdeen, Hibernian and Hamilton and scored late on at the weekend to take his tally for the 2019/20 campaign to 29.
Arfield feels having the centre forward leading the line again will enable the Ibrox club to avoid any more slip-ups and remain in touch with their city rivals in the league in the coming weeks.
“He’s our main threat and game by game he’s getting back to where he was,” he said. “It was always going to take a bit of time to get back to where he was because he was playing 20 to 30 games on the bounce before the break.
“Then he got sent off, and there was a bit of frustration. He’s back scoring goals, but his sharpness will come. You can be fit but football fitness is different to that instinct over two or three yards. He’s getting back to that though.”
Arfield, who has now been on target seven times in all competitions this season, accepts the Rangers midfielders, not just their strikers, have to pitch in with more goals as well.
“Particularly at Ibrox when teams sit in and play a low block,” he said. “It is difficult to play pinpoint passes and play on the half-turn. You have to score goals in different ways. With the ability we have as midfield players we should we scoring more goals.”
The 31-year-old’s stunning injury-time strike was the 100th goal that Rangers have scored this term and he feels that shows they have the ability they need up front to flourish.
“It shows the attacking quality we have in this team,” he said. “We are always going to create chances, particularly when you have two strikers like Alfredo and Jermain (Defoe).
“Greg Stewart is another one who can chip in and we should be capable of getting goals from everywhere. The stat doesn’t surprise me at all."
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 here