Rangers: Why we’re glad Rangers players celebrated the Galatasaray win

Rangers FC players celebrated wildly after their impressive 2-1 victory over Galatasaray in the Europa League and here’s why they should…

It’s been a while since we’ve jumped into any controversy here on Inside Ibrox. Usually the Celtic media gives us plenty of ammo with concocted stories of manufactured Rangers drama, often invented for little reason other than deflect from their own shortcomings. But in fairness to the Hoops, they’ve had so many concerns of their own lately that they are busy enough putting out their own fires to start any over here.

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Of course, there’s always one, isn’t there? Ex-Celtic player Chris Sutton has a bit of a history of, well, being a muppet. There’s really no better way to describe him, you honestly couldn’t love him if you reared him. His footballing career was long and illustrious, but any and all good will was flushed ceremoniously down the toilet the second he picked up a microphone and opened the gaping, cavernous maw on his face that he calls a mouth.

There are some bad pundits out there, many of them favourable to Rangers too, but Sutton is in a League of one. He long since stopped trying to hide his bias and, instead, embraces it by doing everything to minimise the accomplishments of the Light Blues.

This time, someone cared enough to ask him his opinion about, of all things, Rangers players celebrating a stunning Europa League victory against Galatasaray on Thursday night in the dressing room. Sutton had this to say, as quoted in the Daily Record;

"“It was a good performance and they’ve done well to get to the groups but give me a break, the celebrations are totally over the top. Totally embarrassing.Just imagine McCoist, Hateley, Laudrup, Gazza, celebrating getting through to the Europa League group stage? You’re better than that. Come on.I’m talking about the celebrations, we’ve all seen them. It’s embarrassing. How low is the bar?”"

First of all, if Sutton is moaning about something then it means we’re on the right track – but we knew that already. It’s absolutely heart warming to see the comraderie of the players, and further, how much the result means to them.

Sutton wants to suggest that beating Galatasaray, the biggest team in Turkey by far, isn’t a big enough achievement to celebrate as the Gers did. On the contrary, every game should be a cup final for our lads, not a single one should be taken so nonchalantly that you don’t celebrate just as the fans are celebrating.

Rangers have built a solid squad who very clearly gel and bring results that we could only have dreamed of a few years back.

Watching our own stars go nuts in the dressing room, as we all did in our homes that night, is all the proof you should need to see how seriously Steven Gerrard and the lads are taking Rangers and this season. It means every bit as much to them as to us – and Sutton hates that.

His own beloved team get kicked out of the Champions League by Hungarian minnows because they were cocky and overconfident, yet Chris here would rather rag on a bunch of lads for showing more passion on one night than he’s shown in his entire BT Sport career. Further, having the sheer chutzpah to bring up Rangers stars of old, as if he has any insight to how much they enjoyed a hard-fought victory, shows how petty he really is.

In the end, I’m glad this incident is getting media attention courtesy of Sutton’s antics. Rangers should never be ashamed to show their passion, nor ever underestimate an opponent regardless of league standing – especially in a competition as difficult as single round elimination Europe. That Sutton and his ilk think we are better than this is actually a compliment and sign of where we’ve come from and how fast Gerrard has got us there.

The controversial posts round here really are at a premium, but that’s only because the naysayers are having to take us a bit more seriously. From a gulf between Celtic and the rest, and still a gulf in terms of wage bills, Rangers have built a solid squad who very clearly gel and bring results that we could only have dreamed of a few years back. Nobody can take that away from us. We are the People!