Fashion Sakala has insisted Rangers are the best team in Scotland. The Zambian ace is adamant his side are the country’s top dogs - and would have had the title to prove it last year had Steven Gerrard not quit Ibrox.
The evidence this year suggests otherwise with Gers currently trailing Ange Postecoglou’s rampant Premiership favourites by nine points. But Sakala argued a Hampden victory for his side in Sunday’s Viaplay Cup final will hush the doubters and settle the debate.
In a sensational sit-down interview in which he also claimed Gers were “easy to beat” under former boss Gio van Bronckhorst, the Ibrox frontman said: “When you play against Celtic, it’s a different game. You just want to hurt them! I don’t know what’s the right word to use. We just want to see our fans happier than their fans. We just want to hurt them, to make them angry.
“It’s more than a game. I don’t know what else to call it. But you’re always thinking about being better than them. That’s the attitude we are going with on Sunday.
“Yes we’re better than them, so much better! But we’re nine points behind! We’ll keep fighting anyway. I think we are such a better club. A far better club. If we get that trophy on Sunday it will prove that we are a better team than them.”
Sakala was lured to Scotland by Gerrard in the summer of 2021. But the former Oostende frontman spent just five months working under the Liverpool icon before Gerrard was tempted south to take on the Aston Villa job. Van Bronckhorst returned to Glasgow to lead Gers on a Europa League thrill ride that took them all the way to Seville - but he failed to finish the job at home as the Light Blues threw away the promising Premiership position Gerrard had left them in.
Sakala added: “A year ago we won the league unbeaten so that shows we are better than them. Obviously last season we were four points on top before Gerrard left so the change in coach contributed a lot for us to be struggling.
“But if Gerrard was still here I think we’d have won the league last season. And this season you can see we struggled again. It’s the same thing that happened last season.
“But the way we’re playing now, it’s exactly the same as we were playing when Gerrard was here. Yes, we’re nine points behind but we’ll keep fighting to put them under pressure and recover.”
Sakala has emerged as a key figure under new boss Michael Beale, contributing three goals and five assists - including two when Celtic visited Ibrox last month - since Gerrard’s former No.2 was appointed gaffer. And he hailed his new boss for that resurgence, saying: “The way we played was very different (with GVB in charge).
“With Gerrard, we were playing together and closed things down in the middle. With Gio, we were playing wide and were very easy to beat. There were big spaces.
“But the way that we’re playing now – you can see how many times we’ve kept a clean sheet since the manager came in? I’m not blaming Gio.
"I appreciate everything that he did and reaching the Europa League final was amazing. But the way we are playing now is exactly the same as under Gerrard.”
Sakala insists he never thought about quitting Ibrox despite failing to being sidelined by the Dutchman at the start of the season. He said: “Gio told me the first time he came in that he liked big strikers.
“So I knew then it was done for me. But he started telling me he would find me a position, maybe on the wing. He didn’t know where to put me. It was about belief. I believed that one day I would get my chance.
“When Gio was still here I proved to him that I deserved a place and in the last few games before he left I was playing 90 minutes. I wasn’t thinking about leaving. But you start thinking if [the manager] thinks you should stay. Or do they want you to go?
“When you think about how massive this club is and how hard I worked to get here, then it was just all about working hard to make it a success.”
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