Ian McCall knows the odds will be stacked against his Partick Thistle side on Sunday afternoon when they take to turf at Ibrox. He is under no illusions about the scale of the task facing his players and he accepts that they will need to be at their very best – and hope for an off-day from their hosts – if they hope to record a first Jags win over Rangers since 1993.
History would suggest that Michael Beale’s men should win this one but upsets do happen, as McCall knows all too well. The Thistle manager has been involved in his fair share of eyebrow-raising results during his decades in the dugout and was on the receiving end of one of the great Scottish Cup shocks during his time at Ayr United.
“Ayr United 0-1 Auchinleck Talbot wasn’t particularly pleasant,” McCall recalled. “We had a good team then but one or two of the players weren’t fit. Lawrence Shankland wasn’t fit.
“My abiding memory of that is that there were all these houses next to the ground and we were sitting second or third in the league. We were coming out after and the bus was late picking us up, and they were all outside singing ‘sacked in the morning’! It wasn’t pleasant.”
McCall may well be feeling the pressure once again after his Thistle side fell to back-to-back 1-0 defeats to Hamilton and Cove Rangers in their last two outings, but tomorrow’s result will not determine his long-term future.
It is something of a free hit for the Championship club, who go to Govan – where they will be backed by around 2500 away fans – without any real expectation of progression. Supporters are desperate to put their Rangers hoodoo to an end but given the gulf between the two clubs at present, most are realistic about their side’s prospects.
McCall, too, accepts that a change in approach will be required if the Jags are to have any chance of upsetting the apple cart. The 4-1 defeat to Aberdeen in the quarter-finals of the League Cup earlier this season provided some sobering lessons for the 58-year-old and he is keen to avoid falling into the same traps again.
“We will need to be at our best and we will need to play a different way, I don’t think we will be able to go there and play the way we did earlier in the season or more recently against Ayr and Inverness,” he explained. “We will need to play a different way.
“Against Aberdeen I played the same way and it didn’t work out, although we did have two or three injuries that night. For a lot players I think the occasion will lift them and I don’t think confidence is too down because we are still very much in the play-off positions. We keep reminding people that they have done ever so well in the cups this year as well.
“We were on a really good run of form and our last two home games have really hurt us in terms of the league position. If we had taken the points we would be in second place and we would have won eight out of 10, which is very good.
“Those two home games hurt us in terms of the title so it is welcome. It is not going to be easy but I don’t see it differently to many of the Premiership clubs that go there. As you all know, Rangers need to play poorly and we need to be lucky. Sometimes you can get a result.
“We did play ever-so-well in the first half in the first game [against Hamilton] and then the second game [against Cove] is totally changed on a penalty incident. And then Brian Graham stupidly gets sent off and never gave a penalty, so there were things that happened.
“There is no doubt that we were playing with a lot of confidence and that put a dent in it, those two results. But I have always said since I came back that we have no divine right to beat anybody. Hamilton were on a really good run but we still should have won or drawn, and it was the same with Cove.
“A lot of players have been to Ibrox before. There are one or two of them for whom it will be a new thing – and that’s great for them. Hopefully that will inspire them to a really good performance.”
McCall will have a near-full compliment of players to choose from when selecting his starting line-up. Cole McKinnon, the on-loan Rangers midfielder, cannot play against his parent club and so misses the game, while captain Ross Docherty will undergo a fitness test today after picking up a niggle.
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