Barry Ferguson has claimed that James Tavernier has never gone hiding during nine seasons of almost constant disappointment at Ibrox.
Hiding is exactly the accusation that many bears would make at the former Wigan star as they hope against hope that some club from Turkey will come in with an offer today.
Since his latest humiliation at the hands of Daizen Maeda the criticism of the world’s second highest scoring defender has been fierce with one fan verbally confronting Tavpen outside of Ibrox after the 3-0 defeat.
Hiding is exactly the claim made against the current Ibrox skipper, those wearing the armband are expected to assume super human powers, unfortunately the current guy has largely been an empty jersey.
Apart from taking every penalty, free-kick, corner and throw-in to bolster his stats the 32-year-old has been posted missing this season with Daizen Maeda playing on that big time in Celtic’s 3-0 Derby win.
Afterwards the club captain left the media excuses to Jack Butland but despite having a front row view of the latest thrashing Ferguson is standing by the current captain as he told Daily Record readers:
Like him or not. Rate him or don’t rate him. But this guy has been wearing the jersey for nearly a decade as a Rangers player and never once has he gone hiding, no matter how tough it’s been. He’s always fit and available for selection the next week.
That’s another reason why I was wondering where his head is at. I hope he deals with it the way I used to. I hope it’s given him the fuel to get back out onto a pitch as quickly as possible and show what he is all about. But I would understand it if he feels it’s unfair that he’s the whipping boy all the time. It’s a team game for crying out loud, it can’t all be pinned on just one man whether he’s the captain or not.
I wish I could give him a bit of advice but I can’t. Deep down only he knows if he wants to be released from the weight of this responsibility, or if the desire and appetite is still burning as brightly as ever. And it seems he’s chosen the second option. But what I do know is that Rangers will arrive in Tayside on Sunday morning with no room for error.
Celtic will open up an eight point gap over them at the top of the table by beating Hearts at home less than 24 hours earlier. It can’t stay that way. It can’t become a seven point gap either. No, it has to be cut straight back to five. No option.
Anything less than a win will result in things becoming even more heated. Tavernier and his team mates can’t allow this hole to get any deeper. It’s now time for them to start climbing out of it instead.
Famously in 2020 Tav took to the club programme to explain to supporters why their team crumbled under pressure and expectations.
With a contract running until May 2026 the former Wigan man will be hanging onto his lucrative contract which will be topped up by a testimonial at the start of next season.
Despite the media frenzy over bids from Turkey yer man will be wearing the captain’s armband at Tannadice on Sunday, fittingly Tav adds the figure 2 after his signature as a reminder of his team’s position throughout almost all of his career.
I feel a bit of sympathy for Tavernier. He’s never come across as “staunch” and the way he’s been scapegoated for everything that’s wrong with Sevco is shocking. However, it might be better for him, personally, to get out of that toxic mess. It would be good for us too – he’s their best player by some margin for years (even if he can’t defend).
Ah wee Barry Dingle to the rescue eh,let’s see what he has to say when Tavpen goes into hiding this weekend when we are told he is out of the team through an injury he picked up in training.
Then he will be hiding in the treatment room for a couple of months to avoid the pitchforks brigade.
Reminds me of gary(hun) mcallister when he played for scotland, took every free kick, corner and throw in to sound relavent, fuckin dud. HH
We used to call him “ma ba macca” Johnny and yep it bloody well was infuriating his caper so it was !
Ha Ha – Love the bit about the the signature being the signature about always being the bridesmaid and being second !!!
we score some amount of goals coming from that left wing where he is supposed to be defending tavpen must stay.
Tav is not the only Gers player with inconsistent form.
Those Fans who were abusive and hostile towards Tav, should be ashamed of themselves. It’s a team game.
At the moment, Celtic and a couple of other teams, are playing better than Gers
as a team. In the Turkeye Super Lig, Gio’s team has won 3 matches from 3 games. Great start Gio.
Sevco Huns Simply DON’T do shame John !
That any club programme would print comments like that still beggars belief, especially theirs. Sevco have been an amateurish omnishambles since 2012 – a tribute act that gets all the song words wrong and sings off-key when playing in front of a big home crowd!
Has the Bold Bazza, [or his ghost writer], accepted sevco’s place now:
“…It can’t become a seven point gap either. No, it has to be cut straight back to five. No option. Anything less than a win will result in things becoming even more heated…”
So, 5 points behind will be ‘more acceptable’?
DU away is a proper, must-win game for sevco.
Is there fight in the sevco team though? It wasn’t there in the Derby game.
Despite whatever BS Collum comes out with publicly,
you can already guess that there could be quite a few ‘inconsistent’
ref / VAR decisions at Tannadice on Sunday?
And, those decisions will – consistently – be in favour of one team?