Celtic Fans Aren’t The Only Ones Stunned By Record’s Latest Ridiculous Pro-Ibrox Story.

The Daily Record and its sister papers are sometimes so determined to paint a happy picture at Ibrox that they will write stuff that even the fans over there roll their eyes at and find absolutely excruciating.

One of those stories was published last night.

“Rangers carrying the European fight for Scotland as they sit above Barcelona and Real Madrid in UEFA ranking list” is the desperate headline which sat atop Ben Banks latest piece of PR fluff.

Ibrox sits above Real Madrid – the current Champions of Europe – in the five year co-efficient rankings … Jesus wept. I’m sure it’s true … but it’s no less pathetic for it.

“On the UEFA country ranking list of The most successful teams in the last five seasons, the Ibrox club are sixth with a score of 18.125 only bettered by five other clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona amongst those ranking below them,” this pitiful piece reads.

Four of the five teams above them are Manchester City, Ajax, Bayern Munich and PSG. Know who else finished above them? Dinamo Zagreb. Starting to get the drift now? Know who isn’t above them, other than Real Madrid and Barcelona? Liverpool.

Know why that’s significant? Because Real Madrid won two European Cups in that five-year spell and Liverpool and Chelsea also won one. I’ll tell you who else isn’t on the list. Well Villarreal, Eintracht Frankfurt, Sevilla and Atletico Madrid.

What makes those four teams special? Well they, along with Chelsea, won the Europa League during that five year spell and they finish underneath the Ibrox club on this list. Which should tell you what the list itself is actually worth.

Let’s be honest, all an article like this really does is gives us all an opportunity to remind people of a few salient details. Like how Ibrox is now the holder of the unfortunate record of worst team ever to compete in the Champions League Groups … I mean, I could say that I don’t like writing that sentence but that obviously would be a barefaced lie.

So it’s always nice when someone gives me an excuse to write it.

Ibrox fans are watching their club disintegrate. They are thoroughly ashamed of those six defeats and the scale of some of them. The last thing they want to be reminded about is their “recent European record.”

They fluked their way to a final which they didn’t win, but other than that the idea that they have a record to match the current European champions, or Chelsea, or Liverpool in that time is frankly preposterous and their fans know it as well as we do.

Bad enough that the article should be held up as the proof that their record is more exceptional than those clubs, but that they should be credited as the club which is “flying the flag for Scotland” is typical of the rag responsible … pro-Ibrox guff and an insult to the intelligence even of their desperate fans, who aren’t exactly the smartest kids in the class.