LEE Wallace today insisted Rangers have put their humiliating European exit firmly behind them with a hat-trick of morale-boosting results and are in perfect shape to challenge for the Ladbrokes Premiership.
Wallace helped the Ibrox club to beat English Championship club Sheffield Wednesday away at Hillsborough on Sunday in their final pre-season friendly game ahead of the start of the 2017/18 campaign.
Pedro Caixinha’s side, who had drawn with Marseille and beaten Watford in their previous two outings, romped to a comfortable 2-0 triumph thanks to goals from Josh Windass and Kenny Miller.
The Gers skipper revealed the encouraging run had lifted spirits among the squad following their embarrassing defeat to Luxembourgian minnows Progres Niederkorn in the Europa League first qualifying round.
“Since the Marseille game and with the trip down to England, we have been really encouraged,” said Wallace.
“We’ve spoken about trying to gain momentum in the pre-season. We failed on that front in terms of Europe. We don’t want to go into that too much, but we did rightly suffer humiliation for it.
“We have to overcome that, we have to be brave enough to face up to it. And we have. In the last three performances, we have generated more solidity in our play. At the same time, we’ve managed to score a few goals which has been nice.
“We are definitely feeling a lot better about ourselves and hugely motivated for the start of the league season on Sunday.
“It can’t come quick enough with the mood we are in now. People on the outside might have been looking at those three friendlies we were playing and thinking it would be tough for us, especially the way we had played previously.
“But we tweaked the shape a wee bit, used some different personnel and we are now feeling really positive. There is still a long way to go, we recognise that. But we will keep working hard.”
Meanwhile, Wallace, whose side get their Premiership campaign underway on Sunday when they take on Motherwell at Fir Park, dismissed online suggestions that cliques had formed in the Rangers dressing room due to the arrival of several foreign players this summer.
He said: "Naturally if guys know each other or are from the same country they will sit together at the same table and have a coffee. I still sit with Kenny Millar, Graham Dorrans and Jason Holt, but that does not mean that there is a division. That is just life.
"In the last three games I have seen a real togetherness in the squad. The fans have recognised that and it is up to us to keep that feelgood factor going. We can only do that by staying together.
"We don't have any one great individual player that will win us a game at this stage, but our most powerful weapon is our togetherness a team.
"We have team cohesion and a good spirit and we have to respond to bad defeats and move forward positively. We have got that.”
Wallace added: “We are trying to find different ways of playing to integrate the new guys. The guys are learning their English, too, so away from the pitch they are doing their best. They are also getting used to Rangers and how the city works.
“It might take a bit more time, but we are encouraged by the last three games. We have a long way to go to get to where we feel we should be but we hope we are going to start the season strongly."
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel