HIP HOORAY
‘I’m still living the dream’ insists Rangers captain James Tavernier as he opens up on exit rumours
He also revealed the reason he's missed so much of the Gers pre-season
JAMES TAVERNIER insists he's living the dream at Rangers - rather than thinking about a lucrative move to Turkey.
Trabzonspor bid to take the Ibrox skipper away ahead of his tenth and testimonial year earlier this summer, but Ibrox bosses rejected the offer.
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Speculation was rife - with other rumours linking him to reunions with ex-bosses Steven Gerrard and Giovanni van Bronckhorst in Saudi Arabia and Istanbul too.
Sitting out much of pre-season just added fuel to the fire after being spotted alongside wantaway team-mate Todd Cantwell in Holland.
But Tavernier insists he pays the transfer talk no attention and is set on staying at Rangers.
He said: "I just don't take any notice, basically. Yeah, there's been speculation for a long time now, if it's a year and a half, and I addressed it towards the end of last season.
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"I'm fully committed to the job in hand, and that's where my mindset will always be - fully committed to coming day by day and working my extreme hardest to push myself and the team on.
"To do what I do every single day is to be in professional football. You know, it's like I'm 18 again, every single day.
"There's joy for me to come in every single day to train. I'm living a dream and I appreciate the years that have come.
"It's been long, but has gone really quick, which when you're young, you get told by senior lads that your career will be over in the blink of an eye.
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"They're not wrong. It does go really quick.
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"We're going to have to rely on some experience and obviously a lot of youth and the direction the club's going in.
"We want to build on a squad that's going to be here for the future and is going to be competing in the future so we've got to really push the young boys to step in."
Tavernier has seen his place taken in pre-season by various players - young and less so - but he's now raring to go against Hearts, and revealed he only sat out to rest a recurring injury issue.
He told Rangers TV: "It's obviously unusual for [me] to miss them, but with it being pre-season, you know, it was a perfect time to rest my hip flexor, which I had had a bit of fluid in there, so it was a perfect time not just to push through it and let it settle down.
"So sitting on the sidelines and watching the lads train, it was hard to do, but my body feels a lot better now.
"So getting two games underneath my belt before the season started was key. So, personally I'm ready to go.
"Obviously, we've not won the games, except from the closed doors at Hamilton, but, you know, it's all pre-season work so come first game against Hearts, I know the boys are all ready for it."
Rangers are on the brink of signing FC Twente skipper Robin Propper and are pressing for the deal to be done by tonight's Uefa deadline for next week's Champions League qualifiers.
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But Tavernier has welcomed half a dozen new faces into the Ibrox fold already and says they've settled well.
He added: "We always have our little initiation songs when we went into Holland, which was fun.
"I think Jefte maybe got the prize for that one.
"They've all really settled in really well and they're obviously keen to play in front of our fans and show our fans their qualities.
"Our ambitions as a team and as a club is to be in the Champions League, so we'll do everything possible to try and get the club back into the Champions League this season.
"That's our ultimate aim to start this off.
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"European football is where we want to be every season and obviously, the league, we need to start well to try and get ourselves into another final and try and get ourselves, some silverware.
"I think that's why we've been really pushed as a team, because, you know, the squad's going to be needed for this month that's coming up and everyone will be asked to play a part."
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