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Sifu

Sifu

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Sky Sports News @SkySportsNews  Reply  Retweet  Favorite · Open

Bolton reject Sunderland bid for striker Kevin Davies. More on #SSN

 

 

They actually bid. This actually happened. :lol:

 

 

 

Woah! :lol:

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ponsaelius

ponsaelius

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Great to see Sone Aluko doing well for Rangers after the sacrifice he made pushing through his move there. Him and his family put together their savings to pay for the compensation for Aberdeen, only for a contract until the end of the season too so a big risk.

 

Sone Aluko the star man once again as Rangers shrug off January gloom to hammer Hibs

 

THESE are dark days at Ibrox. But things would be a great deal more gloomy for the troubled champions were it not for a little bit of Sone.

 

There really is something remarkable about the impact being made in this corner of Govan by a player who, not all that long ago, was kicking around the fringes of things at Pittodrie without ever really catching the attention.

 

Yet here is now, after spending seven months frozen out of the game, reinventing himself as perhaps the single most talented and important player at the disposal of Rangers boss Ally McCoist.

 

He’s not even been tied down on a proper contract and yet even though he’s had to subsidise his own rebirth, Aluko seems hellbent on making almost everyone else pay for his big opportunity.

 

On Saturday it was the turn of Hibs to be taken apart by the Nigerian and that was indeed an unfortunate turn of events for their manager, Pat Fenlon AKA Martin O’Nevin, who must know by now the damage that lesser players than Aluko are capable of doing to his team.

 

The bottom line is Fenlon’s defence could not be any more unreliable were it made up entirely of second-hand car salesmen. And maybe even journalists.

 

At the weekend they were supposed to be bolstered by new signing James McPake, a recent arrival from Coventry.

 

But McPake’s debut quickly became something of a disaster and the new man was reduced to a state of utter disarray by the time he was put out of his misery by ref Charlie Richmond, who showed him a red card in 70 minutes.

 

Fenlon reacted to this with a touchline display of disbelief and outrage but the Irishman must have been the only man inside Ibrox who hadn’t seen it coming from the moment McPake’s name first went into the book, only six minutes in, for a foul on, you’ve guessed it, Aluko.

 

Aluko, you see, had taken it upon himself to torment this brittle back four and he prodded and poked at it relentlessly all afternoon.

 

He would have scored even before McPake’s first booking had his snap-shot not cannoned off the back of team-mate David Healy just a couple of yards from goal. And from that moment on Hibs found him just about unplayable.

 

This, of course, came as a source of great delight for McCoist who was faced with a conundrum ahead of this match given the absence of his free-scoring talisman, Nikica Jelavic.

 

In fact, with Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith fighting over the treatment table, McCoist’s striking cupboard was all but bare. So his last resort was to bring Aluko in from the wings and hand him a more central role, drifting in behind Healy in a two-man attack few could ever have envisaged.

 

And yet it worked. In fact, it worked a treat. It was Aluko’s subtle touch, lightning acceleration and clever vision that did so much to unravel the partnership of McPake and Sean O’Hanlon, who also had to be removed from the action in the second half after becoming increasingly frazzled.

 

He was subbed by Fenlon soon after a catastrophic contribution to Rangers’ second goal, which was scored by Healy but created entirely by slapstick defending straight off the public park.

 

Until then Fenlon’s side had been doing nothing much more than hanging in and trying to stop Aluko from taking them apart.

 

He did it once in the first half with a wonderful defence-splitting pass that sent skipper Steven Davis racing between McPake and O’Hanlon to slot an icy-cool finish under Mark Brown with 26 minutes on the clock.

 

But it was only when Healy doubled the Rangers lead, nine minutes after half-time, that Fenlon knew the game was up. And the shambolic nature of this concession must have ripped at his very soul. It came when Sasa Papac lashed a clearance upfield without any real forethought. All that was required of O’Hanlon was to step on to it and head it back to safety.

 

Instead, he allowed it to bounce and then turned to see his keeper racing out towards him. O’Hanlon tried to nod it back towards Brown but failed even to do that properly and, with Healy closing in, the keeper tried to tidy up the mess made by his centre-half.

 

But Brown’s header clattered off McPake, leaving all three Hibs men blundering around in no-man’s land, 20 yards from goal. All Healy had to do was run on to the loose ball and roll it into an empty net which he did with no little glee.

 

Suddenly Rangers – who had gone into this game with some trepidation given their recent abject form on home soil – were able to relax and perhaps even enjoy the experience of playing in front of their own for a change. It’s been a long time coming.

 

With the weight lifting from their shoulders, it was the slender Aluko who thrived more than any other.

 

He almost scored what would have been a magnificent solo effort soon after when he dodged and weaved his way through a cluster of half-hearted Hibs challenges before smashing a left-foot shot across the face of Brown’s goal.

 

Even though he missed the target, Aluko’s close control and slippery skills had all of Ibrox on its feet. But it was also a humiliation for Hibs whose pride was now on the floor.

 

McPake – who could have picked up a second yellow card in the first half for a blatant check on Healy – dodged another couple of bullets on the hour when he appeared to block the same player’s shot with a hand inside his own box. Had Richmond spotted it then he would have pointed to the spot and also made McPake take the long walk.

 

And yet Fenlon, who must surely have known his new captain was now skating on dangerously thin ice, chose to remove O’Hanlon moments later as he shuffled his pack for the final half-hour.

 

Sub Martin Scott came close to making an immediate impact with a lovely flick that sent Ivan Sproule in behind the defence but Allan McGregor was out sharply to snuff out the danger. It was just about the keeper’s only contribution of the day.

 

In 64 minutes, McCoist made his first change, swapping the disappointing Gregg Wylde with new boy Mervan Celik who did just about enough in his short but lively debut to suggest he too may have something meaningful to offer.

 

But it was Aluko who was running the show. And with 18 minutes remaining he capped his man-of-the-match performance with a sublime goal, curling a sumptuous free-kick high into the top right-hand corner of Brown’s net from 25 yards and leaving the keeper flat-footed and forlorn.

 

The ruddy cheeked McCoist was almost overcome with enjoyment. It’s been a while since he celebrated anything with such unbridled joy but he too was now spared all the usual anxiety.

 

His team was home and hosed and not least because, in giving away the foul from which Aluko netted, McPake had finally been ordered from the park having pushed Richmond’s patience once too often.

 

A fourth goal wrapped up the romp for Rangers in injury time when Davis plucked a Lee Wallace probe out of the air inside the Hibs box before firing a shot across Brown and in off the keeper’s right-hand post.

 

And even though it was late in the day by now, with a freezing January night closing in fast, suddenly things seemed a little less bleak for Rangers. Sone had led them back towards the light.

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