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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Gavin Berry

The shadows of 1994 as Rangers fans remember the 50 per cent rule that saw off Celtic

Celtic fans are quickly losing patience this season as they see their side sitting sixth in the table after winning just half of their six games in the Scottish Premiership so far.

Supporters of champions Rangers aren’t exactly thrilled by the Light Blues either and that’s despite being at the summit.

And for many it’s a reminder of a campaign when they also won just 50 per cent of their league fixtures - after 44 games!

Celtic's win ratio this season in the league doesn’t exactly make for great reading but it’s not unusual for teams to start slowly and they can often recover.

Rangers haven’t had the best of beginnings either but it’s been enough to at least see them looking down on the rest of the top flight.

For some fans though, they fear the campaign could be a bit of a grind unless they can get their mojo back.

But even if they don’t find top gear then there is still a feeling that they will have too much for the rest.

That was the case in 1993/94 as they won the sixth of their nine-in-a-row run without ever being at their best.

That is summed up by the fact they won just 22 of 44 league games and is quite a remarkable statistic.

It wasn’t a vintage campaign but Walter Smith’s men still had too much in the end as the rest couldn’t capitalise.

In fact, they could even have won a second successive Treble before Brendan Rodgers and Celtic achieved that feat.

(Daily Record)

But they lost the Scottish Cup final to Dundee United and that end to the season summed up the rut they had allowed themselves to get into during the run-in.

Gers effectively wrapped up the league title weeks before the end of the season as they boasted a seven-point lead with five games to go in the days of two points for a win.

That led to the Ibrox stars being accused of switching off as they dropped eight points out of 10 in the remaining matches – picking up just two draws in the run-in – yet were still crowned champions.

Even the night they officially clinched the title in the second last game of the season was an anti-climax as Tom Black scored the only goal of the game to give Kilmarnock victory at Rugby Park.

A scoreless draw in the final match of the season against Dundee at Ibrox didn’t really help the party atmosphere.

The final league table makes it look closer than it was with Aberdeen three points behind, Motherwell a further point behind the Dons and Celtic in fourth.

Gers had a disappointing start to that season when they went out of the Champions League to Levski Sofia just a year after they had been a whisker away from reaching the inaugural final.

That set the tone for a season that just never caught fire, despite the summer arrival of Duncan Ferguson for a British transfer record.

It’s early days but there are shades of resemblance already - in the way Rangers are struggling to get going on the back of such a good previous season.

However, Celtic in particular don’t look capable of capitalising. The Light Blue legions won’t be complaining how they get over the line if they are crowned champions.

But many were unhappy at the lack of razzmatazz for the unfurling of the league flag and it could be a damp squib on the park if Steven Gerrard doesn’t find something to ignite his team.

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