Nico Raskin talks up Rangers positivity power that is well overdue as the effect of missing emotions on squad revealed
The young Belgian reckons the Rangers squad have missed the emotion of celebrating together.
Nico Raskin reckons the team that cheers together redeems together.
And Rangers’ Belgian ace is hoping the power of positive thinking can provide the embattled Ibrox outfit with the spark they need to kick-start their stuttering season. There’s not been much for Gers to celebrate this term. But they made a point of putting on a show of togetherness as they picked up a much needed win in Paisley on Sunday.
Responding to caretaker boss Steven Davis’ appeal for a show of unity amongst the ranks, skipper James Tavernier pulled his team-mates together as they lapped up the penalty he’d just slotted to put them in front against St Mirren. There were more happy huddles as Abdallah Sima and Tavernier again wrapped up a morale-boosting 3-0 victory at the SMISA. Now Raskin says it’s time to turn frowns upside down and really give the Rangers support something to smile about.
“We need to feel that kind of emotion together,” he said after a win that moved the Light Blues above the Buddies into second place on goal difference. "We’ve maybe missed a bit of that emotion after goals and celebrating our wins. That’s important because we know how vital every single win is to achieve our goal. That’s something we’ve spoken about. It’s about trying to be more positive about every single goal, every single win, every single point — because that is how you move forward and achieve the things you want to do.
“That’s so important because when you are in a hard period, you need to be super positive to get yourself out of that situation. That’s what we’re trying to do, to stick together and push each other. That’s why we were so happy with Tav’s goals and happy with Abdallah’s goal. We just wish everyone could score so that we could all go out and do our best!”
Gers’ best hasn’t been anywhere near good enough so far this season and the furious Ibrox faithful didn’t miss their squad with a stinging banner statement at the weekend. ‘Heartless, passionless, leaderless - not fit to wear our colours,’ blasted the bedsheet display in the stand behind Jack Butland’s goal. But Raskin insists his team are fighting hard to find a way out of their rut. He said: “I don’t think it was down to a lack of effort.
“You know, in football sometimes you try to do things but sometimes it just doesn’t work for this or that reason. We haven’t got to the level we want to be at as a team. But we’ve also had some moments go against us. We have to look forward, focus on the next game and try to find the confidence by working hard together. Then it’s about going game after game, trying to give our best. Then it will come. I’m sure it will come because we have quality.
“We’ve just hard a hard period. But every good team across the world can have some periods like this. We just have to stick together and work hard. We all know that we’re coming from a hard time. The last two games before Sunday were difficult for the team. We’ve got a lot of injuries too so it was important to turn this situation around before the international break. We played well. We tried to play as a team, to go forward and make some runs in behind St Mirren. So yeah, I think we did a good job.”
Michael Beale was the man who pushed for Raskin’s £1.75million capture from Standard Liege in January. But his disastrous £13million summer rebuild ended up costing the Londoner his job as his new-look Gers fell apart, allowing Celtic to build a seven point lead before the calendar had even flicked into October. Gers are now on their hunt for a new boss, with chairman John Bennett and chief exec James Bisgrove leading a high-level Ibrox delegation that’s holding interviews in London this week.
But how does Raskin feel having waved goodbye to the man who signed him? "It’s a bit sad for everybody because the gaffer believed in everybody and put us on the field. We were in a bad spiral. Obviously I can’t really say too much - we just weren’t good enough to deserve the wins. Now it’s time to look forward, to work hard and then to grow. We’ll take it game after game and look forward.
“It’s always hard when you can’t achieve what you want to do. We all want to win but we’ve done the wrong things, I think. Now we just have to work well and build on Sunday’s performance over the next few games because we have some important fixtures coming up. We have to stick together and work hard as that’s the only way to go forward and to achieve something good. Obviously Sunday was a very important game.
“Winning that match will give us confidence to move forward and work off the level of the performance at St Mirren over the next two weeks. Obviously we have to work a lot to get where we want to be. But with the injured players coming back, we will work hard and do what we want to do.”