Rangers not distracted by off-field drama

Kenny Miller opened the scoring for Rangers. Picture: SNS

Saturday, then, seemed a feverish day, even by Ibrox standards, as news emerged that the Rangers board had agreed to accept a £2m emergency loan from Mike Ashley to prevent the emptiness of the club’s coffers from taking them to the brink of administration.

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In effectively deciding that the Newcastle United owner would be the club’s lender of last resort – rejecting a similar offer from Brian Kennedy to take on that onus – the development cast Ashley as first among the decision makers at the Championship side.

How the Scottish Football Association react to this when they had struck an agreement with Ashley that he would not have the same influence over Ibrox affairs as he does at St James’ Park, will be intriguing. That said, the fact that Rangers and Newcastle operate within completely separate football borders could make any Ibrox role for the man behind the Sports Direct empire at Ibrox ultimately surmountable.

Then there is the fate of chief executive Graham Wallace. In backing the forever doomed £16m recapitalisation proposal of Dave King, Wallace was always destined to be cooking his own goose, with Ashley’s call for an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) the means by which he will remove the chief executive. The fact that other King backer in the boardroom, Philip Nash, resigned on Friday as Ashley moved in, has left Wallace and isolated figure.

All of this seemed to overshadow what Ally McCoist’s men produced at Dumbarton on Saturday, which, with the draw in the derby, allowed the Ibrox side to move within seven points of leaders Hearts, who have played a game more. Not for those contributing to the comprehensive 3-0 victory, though. And midfielder Lewis Macleod was relaxed about making the point that Rangers players can never be pawns in the financial chess game in which the board is embroiled.

“To be honest with you, it doesn’t really have an affect on us on the pitch, we have just got to go out and win games of football and whatever happens off the pitch, we’ve not really got any say on it or do anything about it,” he said. “As long as we keep winning games on the pitch, that’s all we can do.”

It isn’t a matter of simply ignoring what is going on among the club’s shareholder factions, he maintained though. “We obviously take an interest in it, but at the same time we’ve just got to concentrate on the football. That’s the main thing for the boys in the team. To be honest with you, I don’t really read the papers. You’ve just got to brush it off and concentrate on the football and that’s what we’ve been doing”

They did that with aplomb at the weekend, overcoming an early penalty save by Aberdeen on-loan keeper Danny Rogers from captain Lee McCulloch to overwhelm a side they will face again at the same stadium in the Scottish Cup this Saturday. They did so because of the energy and application from Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace which seemed to infuse a team that can so often fail to find the necessary tempo.

Miller buzzing around simply wearied the home backline, the veteran striker proving the first-half opener when he bashed in a teasing curling left-wing cross from Steven Smith, who repeated the trick to allow Kris Boyd to head in Rangers third midway through the second period. Inbetween times, Wallace ripped apart the Dumbarton defence with a rangy run down the left that allowed him to find the net after a clever one-two with Miller.