Connor Goldson insists he and his Rangers teammates will be using their defeat to Celtic in the League Cup final as motivation for the remaining fixtures against their bitter rivals this season.
Ange Postecoglou inflicted a first defeat on Michael Beale as Ibrox manager when the Light Blues lost out against the Scottish champions during the Hampden Park showpiece back in February.
Rangers face off against Celtic again this weekend in the Scottish Premiership, before a Scottish Cup semi-final showdown between the pair will take place at the end of the month.
A further league fixture will then take place after the split, and Goldson is determined to see out the season with positive results, in the hope that it will deliver silverware and confidence to the Ibrox dressing room.
He explained: “I don’t think we showed our best face in the cup final and we lost the game of football. It was a massive game of football for the club and for our season and we lost it.
“But you have to move forward and we get the chance to play again. There’s a lot of football to be played but realistically we have three Old Firms in the next month or six weeks.
“We have three chances to win massive games of football for this club, this team and our fans to build our confidence and to go into next season on a high.
“First is the league game then there’s the Scottish Cup semi-final then the league again.”
On the small margin for error at a club the size of Rangers, Goldson continued: “It works both ways. There have been games of football this season we have won and I haven’t enjoyed it at all.
“There have been games of football like when we won 4-1 at Hibs and I scored an own goal but I enjoyed the game because of the way the team was playing. It felt like it was back to our best.
“Then there was the Ross County game at home 2-1 and you come off at the end reeling. I feel we should be so much better as a team and we should be more consistent. It’s tough.
“Celtic have had last-minute winners but when you are top of the league you will take anything for three points. We are behind and we need to start playing better regularly to keep this run going as long as we can.”
The season personally has been a tough one for Goldson with a change of manager coupled with injury problems resulting in an overriding feeling of frustration.
Despite this, the Englishman feels Rangers are moving in the right direction under Michael Beale and he hopes the club’s recent run of form can be carried through the summer to the start of next term.
He said: “It’s been hard in every way. We had a managerial change during the season which has been a few years on the bounce now. You want a little bit of consistency and hopefully we have that now.
“Then there was the injury and when I was injured we dropped a lot of points and when I’ve come back we lost a cup final. So it’s probably been the most frustrating one that I’ve had so far.
“We are trying to work every day to get better. There is a long way to go. We are winning a lot of games and maybe we are too hard on ourselves.
“Some games that we are winning we are scraping but it’s probably one of the best runs that we’ve been on. It’s a tough one. Maybe we are too hard on ourselves but we know the levels we can perform to over the years and we get back to that one week then the next we are a bit off it. It’s frustrating for everyone.
“If we go back to when we lost points at the start of the season we had a lot of injuries and the team was all over the place. Since we’ve had a consistent team and consistent squad we’ve gone on a good run.
“We had me, Ben Davies, John Souttar and Fil Helander all injured at the start of the season. We had a tricky period and we came out of it nine points behind. We are still there now which is credit to Celtic.
“They are winning games of football but we are not going to stop. We are going to carry on trying to win as many games as we can and see where that takes us.”
Goldson is part of a senior leadership team at Ibrox alongside captain James Tavernier, Allan McGregor, Scott Arfield, John Lundstram and Ryan Jack, who are all trusted to provide feedback to manager Beale.
The defender enjoys the added responsibility, and he believes he has a big role to play this summer, with recruitment high on the club’s agenda.
He added: “One of the main things the gaffer spoke about was the way we welcome players and wanting a good group.
“Not that it hasn’t been a good group but he wanted to bring the group even closer together.
“He spoke to me about Todd Cantwell coming in and asked what I thought and did I know him from the outside. I didn’t know him but we spoke about the talent he has got and what had happened over the past few years and he’s come in and hit the ground running. He’s been brilliant and as a person he’s been completely different to what I expected.
“You can get some right in that sense and some wrong. The manager just wants his group to be as together and as strong as we can so when you go into tough games you know how to be together and grind out results.”
