The Rangers support has taken to singing “we shall not be moved” and it looks increasingly hard to argue. For the first time in 18 months their team had to handle the pressure of going into a game top of the league, the hunted rather than the hunters. No problem.
They could not have passed the test more emphatically. They battered Hearts, going five points clear of Celtic in the Premiership and scoring a handful to further polish their goal difference.
Rangers were as convincing and compelling as they had been in any performance since their alchemist, Philippe Clement, arrived to light a fire under them in October. This is how champions play, with confidence, energy, high-work rate, pressing and ruthless finishing.
Hearts are the strongest side outwith the Old Firm by a distance, and they were supposed to challenge and pose questions of Rangers just as they had of Celtic when winning 2-0 at Parkhead before Christmas. Instead they were obliterated. “We wanted to make a big statement and I think we did,” said Cyriel Dessers, who scored two of the five.
Ten wins in a row since the turn of the year has been formidable from Rangers. They were all over Hearts, planting full-backs Ridvan Yilmaz and James Tavernier high and pressing so aggressively that Steven Naismith’s side was constantly harassed and panicked into mistakes. Ibrox revelled in it and afterwards Clement again used one of his favourite words, synergy, to describe the shared sense of purpose around the club.
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“I made the decision to come here and build that and it is there now and it is amazing,” he said.
“Even when you come three or four hours before the stadium, so many people are here already. Or if you walk around the city it is crazy how many stop the car and are waving or whatever.
“I get joy out of the pleasure of other people like my team, my staff and the fans. They give me a lot of energy and they give the team energy.”
In his only transfer window so far Clement added a couple of new sources of goals. They went top last weekend after a Mohamed Diomande opener and consolidated their lead here after another one. Both were firm, accurate shots from outside the box. Oscar Cortes fed him and after a right-to-left touch to take out Beni Baningime, and Diomande unloaded a precision finish which beat Zander Clark inside his left hand post. There were 76 seconds on the clock. “We knew they were going to start fast and the atmosphere would be loud,” said Naismith. “We probably didn’t deal with that well enough.”
Cortes is a crowd-pleaser, an entertaining young winger who wants to take on defenders and make things happen. It did not always come off for him but what confidence and cool he showed at his goal. Tom Lawrence squared the ball to him along the edge of the Hearts box and it would have been easy to slash at the finish. Instead Cortes ran on and struck it expertly, first time low into the same corner of Clark’s goal that Diomande had found.
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Hearts were reeling and quickly fell three behind when John Souttar’s diagonal ball over the top took out their back line. Kye Rowles let Dessers get away from him and the Rangers’ striker buried the finish.
Hearts were a massive letdown. If ever they could come to Ibrox with a bit of belief, even swagger, this was it. An eight-game winning run and that recent victory at Parkhead ought to have had them looking Rangers in the eye, their chests puffed out. Instead they folded.
Even allowing for conceding the opener so quickly there was no reason for them to look so spooked. They are better than this. They were hesitant and weak, losing 50-50 challenges and being outmuscled all across midfield and at the back. Their passing was awful.
They are demonstrably better than every other side outwith the Old Firm but there was no sign of that and they sliced and slashed at clearances as poorly as all the other also-rans. They applied no pressure when Rangers had possession, and paid a heavy price. John Lundstram ran the midfield.
The win might have been bigger. Dessers slipped Rowles and raced away from him before chopping in to hit a low shot at Clark. Tavernier had an effort parried away by the Hearts’ goalkeeper and blazed another attempt over. Clark had to save from the excellent Yilmaz too. They made endless mistakes, including Rowles losing possession to Dujon Sterling and allowing Rangers to start the attack for their second goal.
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The fourth was another gift. Dessers took the pace out of Sterling’s cross but Baningime and Frankie Kent made a mess of clearing it from the six yard box and Dessers recovered to score.
Only an inch or two denied him a hat-trick when he stretched in vain to reach Tavernier’s ball across the face of goal. Instead the fifth was Fabio Silva’s, the substitute taking Lundstram’s cute no-look pass and beating Kent before drilling the ball past Clark.
Naismith had replaced Rowles with Alan Forrest at half-time and changed Hearts’ shape. There was a death rattle from them, Forrest and Kyosuke Tagawa bringing saves from Jack Butland and Lawrence Shankland beating the goalkeeper with a glancing header which hit the post. Shankland was well policed by Rangers all day.
Clement grumbled a little about Butland being worked a couple of times at 5-0 up, but he was pleased enough to grant his players a rare Sunday off. Now they travel to Kilmarnock in midweek.
“On Wednesday it starts again at zero-zero and we need to break the wall and do the right things on a different surface. So, new game.”
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Rangers (4-2-3-1): J Butland 7 — J Tavernier 7, C Goldson 7, J Souttar 7, R Yilmaz 8 — M Diomande 7 (N Raskin 71min), J Lundstram 8 — D Sterling 7 (R McCausland 56, 5), T Lawrence 6 (F Silva 56, 6), O Cortes 7 (S Wright 71) — C Dessers 7 (K Roofe 79). Booked Souttar, Raskin.
Hearts (3-5-2): Z Clark 6 — S Kingsley 4, F Kent 4, K Rowles 3 (A Forrest 45, 6) — N Atkinson 4, J Grant 5, C Nieuwenhof 5 (M Tait 82), B Baningime 5 (C Devlin 62, 5), A Cochrane 4 — K Vargas 5 (K Tagawa 61, 5), L Shankland 5 (S Fraser 79). Booked Shankland, Tait.
Referee N Walsh. Attendance 50,354