RANGERS assistant manager Gary McAllister last night rubbished claims the Ibrox club’s form has nosedived this year due to a dressing room bust-up during the winter training camp in Dubai last month.
Steven Gerrard’s men have fallen 10 points behind their city rivals in the Ladbrokes Premiership in recent weeks due to defeats to Hearts and Kilmarnock and a draw with Aberdeen.
Rumours that tensions had arisen within the squad after a fall-out in the Middle East and had led to them squandering the chance to overtake Celtic at the top of the league table have abounded in Glasgow in recent weeks.
Hugh Burns, the former Rangers defender who is now a pundit for Rock Sport Radio, this week stated that Ibrox sources had confirmed to him there had been issues during their warm weather break.
“I am led to believe that something happened in Dubai behind the scenes,” he said. “I have heard things went on in Dubai that shouldn’t have gone on and there is a bit of unrest there just now. And you can see it. There is not a togetherness.”
However, McAllister refuted that allegation and insisted the stunning second-half fightback against Braga in the first leg of their Europa League last 32 double header showed the Rangers players are united.
“I can say absolutely 100 per cent that there was no unrest in Dubai,” the former Leeds United, Liverpool and Scotland midfielder said. “That just wasn't the case. Dubai was fantastic for us, it went really well.
“Thursday night proved our togetherness. It's self-explanatory, just by watching the visual. It's just there, you can see it. All that talk is part of being at a big city club. There will always be people assuming things. But trust me, that's nonsense.
“It's par for the course at a big club. The best way to put all that to bed is to get results and get a run going again. Results haven't gone our way. The performance levels haven't been good enough, we acknowledge that.
“But my feeling is that, in all of those games, we had good chances. On Thursday night we took them. But at any level, you have to produce in those moments. We had them at Hearts and at Kilmarnock. If we'd put them away, everything would look different.”
McAllister added: “The word crisis is used too often. We have to deal with the negative publicity that comes our way, but we can build on the Braga result. We can go again. If we can replicate the form of the first half of the season, you never know what can happen.
“As a staff, we need to stay nice and tight. We need to trust and believe in what we're doing. A lot of questions have been asked. But in that last 25 minutes when we started the comeback, you could see a fantastic togetherness.
“There's a lot of character here. Our mentality has been questioned but it takes a lot to come back like that and turn a result around in that manner. We were aided by a crowd that was extremely vocal. It evoked a few memories for me.”
Meanwhile, McAllister has stressed to the Rangers players that beating St Johnstone in the Ladbrokes Premiership at McDiarmid Park today is more important than overcoming Braga in the Europa League in Portugal next week.
McAllister has stressed that nobody in Gerrard’s squad has given up hope of stopping Neil Lennon’s team from winning a record-equalling ninth consecutive Scottish title this season.
And he has urged James Tavernier and his team mates, who take a 3-2 lead into the second leg of their Europa League last 32 tie against Braga on Wednesday night, to focus fully on the match in Perth.
“The St Johnstone game on Sunday is more important than Braga,” he said. It's ultra-important for all of us. We'll try to pick the best 11 for that particular game. We want to win the game on Sunday with a slick performance, but it's just about winning and getting a run going again.
"Listen, we want to win the game with a nice slick performance. If you can get double bubble, perfect, but it's about winning and getting a little run going again. We want to give the fans something to shout about, we want to be the club to be together and keep pushing forward.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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