Chris Sutton believes Rangers have not been consigned to second place in the Scottish Premiership just yet.
The Light Blues have handed the title race initiative to Celtic within the space of a few days after faltering against Ross County last Sunday and then drawing at Dundee in midweek.
Rangers could only muster up a point from those two games which if won, would have had Philippe Clement’s squad sitting two points ahead of the Hoops at this stage.
It’s all went pear-shaped for Rangers across the past five league games stretching back to the worrying home defeat to Motherwell that set alarm bells ringing.
And it means they now have it all to do to regain the Scottish Premiership title they last won under Steven Gerrard in the 2020/21 campaign.
Clement isn’t giving up without a fight though, even though the vast majority of the Rangers fan base believe any hopes of winning the league have been left in the dust.
But Sutton thinks there’s a reason why Rangers supporters can’t be too down in the dumps just yet ahead of the split fixtures commencing next weekend.
Sutton still gives Rangers a fighting chance
Writing in his weekly Daily Record column, Chris Sutton fully understands that Celtic are going to be stronger with several key players returning from injury.
But the controversial pundit insists the Hoops – fans and players alike – cannot get ahead of themselves because they still have problems of their own.
Sutton said Rangers’ title hopes are on ‘life support’ but wrote: “At Celtic, you can see the influence of key players returning, like Reo Hatate, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Callum McGregor.
“Like Brendan Rodgers said, they are coming alive at the business end of the season. Rangers’ hopes are on life support.
“Unlike Celtic AND Rangers fans, I don’t think the title race is over. I don’t trust either side to remain unbeaten from now until the end of the campaign.
“There are still issues in the wide areas at Celtic and they are a team that has played in halves over this year.
“It was the same against St Mirren last weekend, where it was a bit of a struggle against a team sitting deep until they got the first goal.
“Celtic fans are taking great delight in the apparent collapse at Ibrox but their players have to completely ignore what’s going on over there and take care of their own business.”
Celtic can still slip up
It’s fair to say both Rangers and Celtic haven’t been at their flying best this season.
The Glasgow arch-rivals have failed to completely convince their fan base at different stages of the campaign with the title race momentum swinging back and forth.
At the moment, Celtic once again are in the driving seat. But we’ve witnessed this season, as Sutton is alluding to, that the Parkhead side are not perfect.
While they have been able to get results recently, performances across 2024 haven’t been massively impressive for Brendan Rodgers’ charges.
So as Sutton writes, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see them falter again against even perhaps a Dundee or a Kilmarnock, who Celtic have to play away from home.
Rangers have much more of a task on hand but Sutton isn’t wrong – there is still a glimmer of hope and Gers fans shouldn’t be writing off the season just yet.
