The media’s latest Ibrox love-in is both wholly predictable and utterly stupid.

Another day, another round of positive stories emerging from Ibrox. Now we’re told they’ve finally discovered their midfield duo that will supposedly propel them forward, terrorising domestic opponents and—naturally—instilling fear in Europe.

As football fans in Scotland who aren’t affiliated with the Ibrox club, it gets tiresome being exposed to this same wishful thinking. This kind of “opium for the masses” fantasy is utterly exhausting. Celtic fans encounter hype too, but ours comes with a different tone—part annoying, part unintentionally funny.

So, who are these miracle midfielders we’re all supposed to be dreading? Connor Barron and Nico Raskin. One was a backup player for Aberdeen last season, while the other’s stock has risen and fallen more often than a yo-yo. The relentless hype is baffling, especially when it recalls Celtic fans’ own long-term hopes for Mikey Johnston. You desperately want to believe there’s a player there, but deep down, you know you’re chasing an illusion.

The Ibrox mindset is a strange beast, and their management has shown us a world of difference between their approach and ours. People often wonder why they occasionally perform well in Europe, but struggle domestically. These two issues are, in fact, interlinked. Their team is built around an odd system that relies on two holding midfielders. That might work in Europe, where a conservative approach can be useful, but domestically, it’s simply impractical. Week in, week out, they face teams that barely leave their own half, and the strategy becomes wasteful.

The latest experiment at Ibrox is to find a pair of defensive midfielders who work well together. This latest duo, we’re told, is the magic combination they’ve stumbled upon—a solution, they say, to all their troubles. But is it? The two-defensive-midfielder setup is part of the problem, not the solution, and the individuals they’ve chosen are far from top-tier talent.

Let’s be frank: neither of these two are especially good players. Raskin, in particular, is a poor excuse for a footballer. Sure, he’s got plenty of energy, and yes, he’s aggressive—some might say borderline thuggish—but that’s hardly a quality Celtic fans would find intimidating. Barron, on the other hand, is painfully one-dimensional, excellent at running around and expending energy but contributing little of substance. Neither would even make Celtic’s squad, let alone the starting XI, and that tells you all you need to know.

Had Barron moved from Aberdeen to Hibs, we wouldn’t hear about him more than a few times each season. At Hearts, he might have gotten a tad more attention with their European fixtures, but no one would be discussing him as a national team prospect. His sudden “starring role” at Ibrox isn’t an endorsement of his talent—it’s a reflection of how much the team has weakened.

Of course, we operate in a media culture obsessed with finding any shred of good news for the Ibrox club, and this is a classic example. These players are being promoted as the answer to the club’s myriad issues. There’s also an obvious strategy at work: this hype is partly a ploy to inflate their transfer value as they chase Celtic, desperately trying to close a yawning financial gap.

But as I’ve often noted, no amount of media hype can turn an average player into a good one. If anything, it raises expectations that will inevitably be crushed when these players fail to meet them. Raskin, for instance, has been touted as a £20 million player more times than I can count, yet he has never delivered on that absurd valuation. Barron has also been subject to ridiculous comparisons with Celtic captain Callum McGregor, based on a handful of cherry-picked stats, no less.

These media tactics are painfully transparent, and over the years, they’ve proven self-defeating. You can’t transform a player simply by proclaiming his greatness; it doesn’t entice big clubs, nor does it improve the player’s performance. Reports from the Daily Record and their ilk attempting to drum up interest have been as ineffective as they are misguided.

The worst part of this cycle is that the Ibrox fans seem to buy into it every time. Somehow, they convince themselves that they have a stronger squad than reality suggests or that the manager has cracked some elusive formula. In truth, he’s floundering, living game-to-game, and hoping for a solution he doesn’t possess.

But the fans will cling to this illusion, setting themselves up, as always, for disappointment. It’s all so predictable. And for us, it’s more than a little amusing.