Maybe Ben Fogle should keep his mobile phone switched on – just in case he gets a call from Steven Gerrard.
The TV adventurer, famous for climbing Mount Everest, rowing the Atlantic and racing across Antarctica to the South Pole, was recently asked by Jurgen Klopp to attend Liverpool’s pre-season training camp in Switzerland.
The object of the exercise was to “build the mental resilience” of the 2019 Champions League winners
On the basis that what’s good enough for Liverpool is good enough for Gerrard, he could ask Fogle to look at an Ibrox side who went out of the Champions League qualifiers to Malmo on Tuesday night in a mood of “fear and panic” according to the manager.
Then again, it might be time for self-analysis of a more personal nature, incorporating the manager’s performance as well as that
of his players.
Domestic league success was achieved in the Rangers fans’ absence last season.
Champions League failure was witnessed in their presence at Ibrox last week.
Now the club is back to soft loans and hard words.
And how galling must it be for the returning fans to have it suggested they might actually be part of the problem because they turn up in their tens of thousands and make the kind of intimidating noise that allegedly spooks the players while they flush several millions of pounds down the gurgler?
Give me peace.
What are the supporters supposed to do? Send in their season ticket money then make themselves scarce on match days?
Rangers lost to St Mirren and St Johnstone in separate cup competitions last season when no fans were present. What was the excuse for defeat on those occasions?
You could try bad game management. Matches that were lost from a position of strength, similar to the one against the Swedes.
The manager made personnel changes that didn’t work against Malmo and failed to lift a team who managed to turn a numerical advantage, gained through a red card, into an insurmountable hurdle with a goal of a start.
Gerrard is fond of using one phrase whenever things don’t go according to plan.
He always says: “It’s on me.”
And he’s right where Malmo were concerned.
In the wake of the league defeat from Dundee United last weekend, the manager said he had to “flip the mood.”
He did.
It was flipped from bad to worse. Steven is now back to being the guy with one trophy win in nine since coming up here which is, by any arithmetical criteria you care to employ, a success rate of 11 per cent.
Assumptions were made, particularly by the former Ibrox chairman, Dave King, regarding the Champions League bonanza.
He had the money won, counted, banked and already earmarked for being transformative regarding the club’s future.
Now Rangers are back to where they started last November, when the club declared pre-tax losses of £17.793million.
Gerrard has to line up beside his players on the receiving end when he says he anticipates “a lot of noise and a bit of criticism”.
Stopping Celtic from winning 10 In A Row meant everything to the Rangers support but it amounts to nothing in the wider world.
Gerrard’s reputation took a hit in midweek and the remainder of the domestic season is now pivotal for him. Rangers must win the
Premiership and automatically qualify for the group stages of the Champions League next season in order to balance the books.
The financial cost of stopping Celtic from making history has been considerable for those who provide the soft loans.
The assumption was Malmo would be removed to help create a higher degree of sustainability.
The assumption was partly founded on the assertion that, if Rangers scored the first goal of the game, everything would be fine.
The assumption turned out to be misplaced and Gerrard’s stock has temporarily fallen as a consequence.
Now he has to engage in his own Fogle-like endurance test.
