Rangers captain James Tavernier has insisted that the Ibrox side will be challenging Celtic for the title, ahead of the Scottish Premiership season kicking off this Saturday.
Given they haven’t even finished second yet since promotion to the top-flight, perhaps they should focus on overcoming Aberdeen before setting their sights on Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic.
As quoted by The Daily Record, the right-back said: “We’re playing for Rangers and the expectation is to bring trophies back to the club. The fans expect it, we expect it, we have winning mentalities. Our aim is to be in competition in all the trophies we are in. It would be challenging for the title. We are Rangers, so we always have to be challenging for the title. You can’t expect anything less.”
Ambition is needed in football, but we’ve heard it all before from our city rivals and this hubris has yet to end well for the Light Blues, with headline after headline coming back to bite them just a few months into the season in recent years.
In Tavernier’s time at Ibrox, the club have finished 39 points and 12 points behind Celtic, both seasons in third place, having failed to beat Brendan Rodgers’ side even once at Celtic Park, Ibrox or Hampden.
Optimism is again peaking over there after the appointment of Steven Gerrard, but Celtic are looking imperious in the early stages of the season despite having not yet signed a player who was not at the club last term.
As always, Celtic will pay little attention to what is happening at Ibrox, although the first derby of the season coming so early at Celtic Park gives us a good chance of laying down a marker and again stopping all talk of title challenges, from them at least.
Do you think anyone will challenge Celtic for the title this season? Let us know in the comments…