Allan McGregor may be in line for his 500th Rangers appearance this weekend but manager Michael Beale expects the veteran goalkeeper to continue racking up games for the foreseeable.
The Ibrox side host Dundee United on Saturday, where Beale and his players will be looking to put pressure on league leaders Celtic ahead of their trip to Dingwall the following day, and McGregor will be hoping to mark the milestone with a victory and a clean sheet.
At 41, it’s no secret that the shot-stopper is approaching the end of his playing career – indeed, he appeared to have seriously flirted with the idea for a brief moment last summer before signing a one-year extension – and as we get nearer to the end of the campaign, questions over the keeper’s future will surely surface.
Until the time comes when McGregor feels he can no longer contribute to his team’s cause, Beale is convinced the Rangers legend will continue to give his all on the pitch and at the training ground. He hopes that other members of the squad have been watching the Ibrox No.1 closely, picking up pointers on how to prolong their own careers, as the Englishman reflected on the former Scotland internationalist’s longevity and influence at the club.
“Allan re-joined the club when I joined the club for the first time in the summer of 2018,” Beale told Rangers TV. “I hadn’t worked with him before but quickly I saw how fantastic he is day in, day out in terms of his work ethic, training and rituals.
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“He is a man who sticks to his rituals and works away. If we are a minute late getting to the stadium then he gets really annoyed because he is really thorough in his preparation, his recovery and his training. That has enabled him to have a wonderful career.
“To achieve 500 games for Rangers is a very special achievement. Very few have done it in the past, certainly to the age that Allan has played and the achievements that he has had for the club.
“In the time I have worked with him here he is probably on the best part of 200, nearly 250 games. He has been outstanding. Some of the saves that he has made… there are too many to mention.
“Every season he has earned us points, he has won us games and got us through to the next round in cup competitions. When you look at him day in, day out it’s no secret – hard work, preparation, dedication to your craft and always being intrigued and open-eyed in terms of learning and wanting to get better.
“This is a man in his forties who trains every day like he is a teenager and he is watching and learning all the time. He is very self-reflective, self-critical if you like. He is willing to take feedback on and he just wants to win and get better.
“If that can’t rub off on you as a young player – and to be honest, everyone in the squad is younger than him – then you’re not opening your eyes to bettering yourself.
“I think Allan is a cornerstone to everything that’s been good about this club since I came in 2018 and I think he can be hugely proud. He is not finished yet – it will be 500-and-something. It won’t be 500, it won’t end there. But I think the service that he has given this football club, as a young boy coming through our academy, is absolutely outstanding.”
McGregor will be hoping to mark the occasion with a clean sheet but at the other end of the park, Beale is hoping to see a little more from Rangers’ forward-thinking players against United.
The match will be the third occasion that Beale and Jim Goodwin have locked horns since the former returned to Glasgow at the tail end of last year and the Ibrox manager is expecting a tricky encounter.
“We played Aberdeen [Goodwin’s former club] and they were two quite close games where we got the victories,” Beale recalled. “They are fighting for their lives down the bottom of the league and they will come to Ibrox and make things tough, like most teams do.
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“They will come to Ibrox and try to reduce the space on the pitch. It is very important to us that we are very sharp in the final third and we are making the most of opportunities and scoring goals.
“We have been scoring goals of late but it’s probably fair to say that in every single game we could have scored more. So for me, the most important thing is that we are creating chances and scoring.
“I would like us still to be a little bit more ruthless because I think if you look back to the Motherwell game, we should have scored more goals. In the Raith game, we should have scored more goals. In the game away at Hibs, we should have scored more goals. Now, there are good times where we are scoring three or four but I want us to be more ruthless.”
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