Andy Halliday believes Rangers are in their best shape yet to challenge Celtic for the title – and says they can’t not win a trophy this season.
The Ibrox midfielder has been impressed with gaffer Steven Gerrard’s summer recruitment drive and insists they’re confident of closing the gap on their Old Firm rivals.
Halliday said: “It’s a huge season for us because we simply can’t come away from this one with no winners' medals. Celtic are still favourites for the title. They won again last year and had a bit of a cushion.
“But I can only speak from a Rangers player’s point of view and say it’s the most confident I’ve been going into a season.
“We improved last year and with the signings we’ve made so far, we’re already improving the squad.
“I also know first-hand we’ve got the right man in the manager’s job and the right backroom staff to make a title challenge.
“I can’t speak for Celtic. I don’t know the relationships their players had with Brendan Rodgers compared to Neil Lennon.
“But you have to give Neil credit because he came in and got them over the line. He achieved the two targets he had at the end of the season. We just have to concentrate on ourselves and try to bridge that points gap again from last season.”
Despite finishing trophyless, Halliday is convinced Rangers made progress. And with six new signings in Joe Aribo, Sheyi Ojo, George Edmundson, Jordan Jones, Greg Stewart and Jake Hastie, he feels they can kick on again.
He added: “We felt we’d made quite a bit of progress. But we were honest enough to say we didn’t achieve what we set out to do. So ultimately, we failed.
“However, this is the most positive I’ve been going into a new season.
“We knew we needed a few additions and that’s something the manager got to grips with pretty quickly. That’s ideal, it gets the new players used to how we want to play.
“It’s all positive so far but we know actions speak louder than words.”
