For the past few weeks we've psyched ourselves up for a big winner-takes-all shoot-out but, sadly, it is not to be. The stupid points carelessly thrown away throughout the season have, as we feared, come back to haunt us and there is nothing more than pride at stake on Sunday.
Of course, with it being Big Eck's last day in charge and quite a number of players surely making their final appearance for Rangers, it would be good to think there will be an edge to our play. Harsh reality tells us this is hardly likely. Just like each of us in the stands, the players will be glad to see the back of this season and, having been incapable of lifting themselves to the modest heights of second place in the SPL table, they are more inclined to be going through the motions.
Looking back over the season it is hard to pinpoint any particularly damaging defining moment but generally draws have been the death of us. Ten matches were drawn and significantly, with the possible exception of our visit to Tynecastle in March, these were games where the result marked two points lost, rather than one gained. You don't need a degree in mathematics to spot what a difference those twenty points would have made to the defence of our title.
Jeez, if we could even have held on to the two-goal leads we had established at Livingston and against Falkirk, we would be going into this week's game on level pegging. Just as we find it hard to understand why we are so far adrift of a hardly impressive Sellick team, we will have puzzled looks on our faces when the Jambos indulge in their inevitable Champions League taunts. We knew things were bad…but we never expected it to get this bad
After all the excitement of our recent Champions League campaign, it will be hard to accept the poorer fare of the UEFA Cup. Inevitably, we'll all be hoping Arsenal beat Barcelona, to make sure FC Semtex have to face a qualifying round and, even with the best will in the world, it is hard to picture a Hearts team, which came close to squandering a 16 point lead over the poorest Rangers team of all time, rubbing shoulders with the elite.
So any show of arrogance from our visitors might yet rebound on them if they eventually find themselves having to share the UEFA Cup stage with Rangers. How many of them would bet on their team making a greater impact on the competition than Paul Le Guen's new-look Gers?
No matter how the game pans out on Sunday, I hope there are no OTT displays of emotion one way or the other. Victory to send out a message that the Jambos supremacy will be brief should be greeted with a loud cheer, the team should gather in the centre circle, take a brief bow, then head for the dressing room. Spare us the embarrassment of defiantly acclaiming failure as anything remotely resembling success.
Similarly, if we see another miserable display, lets not give our enemies the pleasure of gloating over our excessive suffering. We've had ample opportunities to vent our splean. This weekend marks the end of a very difficult season for Rangers. Lets just walk away…and look forwards to better times next season.
ERWIN GANGHUTTER