Danny Rohl got the double boost he was looking for as Rangers’ 4-1 win over Aberdeen at Ibrox moved them in to second place in the William Hill Premiership behind Hearts.
Rangers leapfrog Celtic in title race
The boss claimed on Friday his side would be “tough to stop” if they married performances to results and he was delighted to see midfielder Tochi Chukwuani open the scoring in the 35th minute before 18-year-old Tottenham loanee Mikey Moore added a second three minutes after the break.
Dennis Geiger reduced the deficit but goals from midfielder Nico Raskin and captain James Tavernier moved Rangers back to within three points of Hearts, leapfrogging Celtic into second place, as the Hoops slumped to a defeat at Dundee United on Sunday.
Rohl said: “A great performance, over 90, 95 minutes.
“We spoke about this result and performance today, I think we saw both and that’s what makes me really happy today, to see my team perform like this.
“We want to see goals, I think this is always great. I’m a manager, I also want to see clean sheets.
“This is the only small thing today after the 2-0 that we bring this team back for a short moment.
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“But in general, how we played with a lot of intensity, we were very aggressive against the ball, good positioning in possession.
“In general, a small statement, especially with the goal difference as well, we won the last two cup finals and now we have seven to go.”
And while Rohl has eyes only for the title, the Gers’ simply must finish in the top two to qualify for the UEFA Champions League next season or face a perilous financial situation, Stefan Borson has told Football Insider.
Rangers £32m behind Celtic with major financial concern looming
Indeed, with Scotland falling in the UEFA coefficient rankings, the league will lose one of its two Champions League spots from the end of next season, with their overall allocation in Europe’s elite competitions set to drop from five to four.
This makes qualifying this year even more crucial, with Borson explaining that new Gers CEO Jim Gillespie is staring at a black hole in the books after terrible player trading under Patrick Stewart and Kevin Thelwell.
The Ibrox outfit made a loss of £600,000 on player sales last season, which was a whopping £32m behind Celtic, who registered a healthy profit in that department.
“He will have a lot of the same priorities that the previous CEO had,” said Borson.
“I think there are two main areas that Rangers need to focus on. One is making more money from player trading and two now is dealing with mitigating this change in the European competition situation, which I consider to be a very serious change to the financial viability of the biggest Scottish clubs.
“They need to find a way around it in terms of generating more money probably from youth and the trading of players. But look, it’s not easy to do. Everybody’s trying to do it.”
Simply put, with Rohl desperate for Rangers to sign Mikey Moore permanently, the club simply must secure the financial benefits of top level European football over the next few years to stay competitive with their rivals in the market.
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