SEASON 2024/25 – JUST HOW BAD IS IT?
Any season that sees Rangers winning nothing and playing for only pride as the trophies get lifted can only be described as an abject failure. Season 2024/25 has now seen the last Old Firm match to get the fans excited, with the prospect now of three “dead rubbers” before we can finally consign the campaign into the dustbin of history. But just how bad has it been, compared to other awful seasons gone by? This is an attempt to put this season into context. That context has to only include top-flight league football, no doubt we can argue with good justification that seasons spent toiling in the lower leagues post-administration were worse. So put 2012 – 2016 to one side, they were historically unique.
Firstly, there have been some historic lows, records set that suggest those living through the 2024/25 nightmare are suffering worse than any previous generation. The worst of these was a home defeat in the Scottish Cup to lower league opposition, something that has never happened before. And when we see where Queen’s Park finished in the league below us, it becomes an even worse result. They ended the season in eighth place, only escaping the relegation play-off thanks to Hamilton receiving a 15-point deduction. Queen’s Park won just nine of their 36 league fixtures, ending the season having won less than a point a game. It’s hard to think of a worse Ibrox result in history, that’s because there hasn’t been one. The only possible comparison is a 2-1 loss to little Stenhousemuir in the League Cup back in 1972, but Rangers had won the first leg 5-0 and played many reserve players in the meaningless home return match. Berwick in 1967 is the only real contender for worst Scottish Cup result, and when we consider that was a Rangers team who reached a European final and contained several of the Barcelona Bears, it might still be worse. But that was away from home, a crucial difference. The Scottish Cup defeat this year puts the current campaign right down at the historical bottom for that competition.
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But we did see Rangers reach the other domestic final, where a combination of bad luck and criminally bad officiating conspired to see a defeat on penalties to Celtic in the final. Three top-flight teams were defeated to get to Hampden, wins over St Johnstone, Dundee and Motherwell might be just what we expect, but given the lack of consistency in the league against similar opposition, we can’t say that the second cup tournament was historically bad. In fact, we all know that if the VAR room hadn’t blatantly failed to do their job, there would be silverware in the Ibrox trophy room right now.
Then there was Europe. The defeat by Kiev during our horrible temporary use of Hampden was partly down to another horrendous decision by officials. But the truth is that we should never have been in a position to lose to a team who had no home ground to play in, and who were shown by subsequent results to be a very poor lot. Kiev were comfortably beaten by Salzburg in the next qualifying round, with the Austrians then finishing 34th out of 36 teams in the Champions League stage, winning just once. Kiev dropped into the Europa League, alongside Rangers. They also finished 34th, and also won just once, and that was a dead rubber final game of the competition for them, when they scraped past a team from Latvia. The Rangers continental season started with a truly terrible defeat, but the European season was then rescued by a terrific Europa League campaign. A top eight league finish, and an eventual quarter-final place were most definitely punching way above the current team’s weight. Wins away in Sweden, France and Turkey were hugely impressive, as were the games played against EPL megarich opposition. Bilbao was a step too far, but against a team on the verge of Champions League qualification via their La Liga placing, there is no shame there. Rangers continue to defy the odds on Europa Thursdays.
But the bread and butter of any season is the league championship. The run of five successive home defeats in 2025, that spanned across the league, the Scottish Cup and Europe was another historic low. In fact, after recent draws against Bilbao and Celtic, the last time an Ibrox crowd saw a home win was a win over Ross County on February 2nd! To be slightly fair, there have only been four home league games in the three months since then, with dire defeats to St Mirren, Motherwell and Hibs preceding the Old Firm draw. And it isn’t yet the longest run without a win in the league at home.
The Rangers team of the early 1960s is rightly revered as one of the greatest ever, so it will surprise many to read that there was a longer run without a home league win in 1960. Rangers beat Dunfermline 5-0 on January 23rd, then incredibly failed to win another home league game all season. They lost twice, to Motherwell and Third Lanark, and drew the other four remaining fixtures against Dundee, Aberdeen, Arbroath and Airdrie to notch up a run of six games without a win. Prior to the Dunfermline win there had been home draws to Hibs and Partick as well, so that season ended with Rangers winning the Scottish Cup, reaching the semi-final of the European Cup, but only winning one out of nine home league games. No wonder they finished third. And because the following season started with League Cup games, the first home league game wasn’t until August 24th, which was a win over Partick Thistle. That meant the home support finally saw a league win SEVEN MONTHS since the last one! And that was a team containing the likes of Shearer, Caldow, McMillan, Brand and Wilson.
There is also another unwanted record, Rangers conceding two or more goals in an unprecedented eight successive league games. Previous successful Rangers managers like Souness, Smith and Gerrard very obviously built upon defensive strength. It seems obvious to say that shipping goals at the rate we watched recently would never win titles. It’s maybe worth saying that the Ross County win mentioned above was the thirteenth league clean sheet of the season, and that up until Philippe Clement’s sacking in late February, the worst run of conceding two league goals in a game stood at just two matches. Defensively, we look to have regressed badly since he left.
But to attempt a more recent overall comparison of league performance, how does this league season so far compare against the other top-flight seasons since the current twelve team set-up was started in 2001? This is the 25th season of this league structure, with a season of 38 games and an end-of-season top six split. How did Rangers fare in terms of points, wins, losses and goals this season compared to these years. We can’t compare against all 24 previous campaigns, there were four in which Rangers were playing outside the top division, and there was the farcical 2019/20 season cut short by the pandemic where the title was awarded rather than won. The table below sums up Rangers in the Top Twelve era, with details on points won after 35 games (the number played this season so far), as well as the starts on the full seasons:
YEAR
35 GAMES POINTS
38 GAMES POINTS
GAMES WON
GAMES LOST
GOALS SCORED
GOALS CONCEDED
MANAGER / COMMENTS
2001
73
82
26
8
76
36
Advocaat
2002
80
85
25
3
82
27
Advocaat, McLeish
2003
88
97
31
3
101
28
McLeish
2004
78
81
25
7
76
33
McLeish
2005
84
93
29
3
78
22
McLeish
2006
64
73
21
7
67
37
McLeish. Finished 3rd
2007
69
72
21
8
61
32
Le Guen, Smith
2008
82
86
27
6
84
33
Smith
2009
79
86
26
4
77
28
Smith
2010
83
87
26
3
82
28
Smith
2011
84
93
30
5
88
29
Smith
2012
66*
73*
26
7
77
28
McCoist *deducted 10 points
2013
Lower league years
2014
Lower league years
2015
Lower league years
2016
Lower league years
2017
61
67
19
9
56
44
Warburton, Murty, Caixinha Finished 3rd
2018
65
70
21
10
76
50
Caixinha, Murty. Finished 3rd
2019
72
78
23
6
82
27
Gerrard
2020
n/a
67**
21
4
64
19
Gerrard. **Only 29 games played due to pandemic
2021
93
102
32
0
92
13
Gerrard
2022
80
89
27
3
80
31
Gerrard, Gio
2023
85
92
29
4
93
37
Gio, Beale
2024
81
85
27
7
87
32
Beale, Clement
2025
68
20***
7***
71***
38***
Clement, Ferguson ***3 games to play
Rangers were champions Celtic were champions
So what does this all tell us?
We are on 68 points after 35 league games played. Ignoring the 10-point deduction in 2012, the only seasons this century where Rangers had less points at this stage were the three seasons the team finished third (2006, 2017, 2018). The average points after 35 games in seasons when we finished second is 78 points, ten more than this season. However, if we win two of our last three games, we will end up with more points than the second-placed finish in 2007, although that was the season when we dropped a huge proportion of our points under Paul Le Guen in the first half of the campaign before Walter’s return saw a far heathier points return from January onwards. The average points return in season’s we won the title sits at 85, which just happens to be the points total Celtic have this season after 35 matches. Both statistically and in reality, we are 17 points off the pace we need to set.
It has to be said, that winning all the last three games would mean we need to put together a winning run last achieved in January-February. But even if we do get nine points from nine, the season’s points total would only reach 77, the worst since the dark days of Caixinha and Murty. And surely a big reason for that is our goals conceded column. 38 goals shipped, and three more games to play. The only full seasons we conceded more were the two third-placed finishes in the successive seasons after we returned to the top division. Even if we end up conceding no more goals in 2024/25 (how likely is that?), it will be the worst defensive record of any league season this century outside those two especially horrendous campaigns. The three fully Gerrard seasons in particular stand out since 2017, with our goals per game against a mere 0.56, compared to 0.96 over the last 3 seasons up till this point. This season it is 1.09. The stats just back up what our eyes are telling us, this is the worst Rangers defence for years, and among the worst in a quarter of a century. And getting worse.
There seems no doubt, that history will recall this season as a truly horrendous one, and for various reasons. As we await it to end with games against Aberdeen, Dundee United and Hibs, not even three victories can rescue it from mediocrity. But it’s not events on the pitch we are watching with greatest interest. New ownership, new finance and new ideas are just around the corner. And with that will come new management and new players. Despite the depressing reality of the present, I’m optimistic for the future. One thing seems certain, it won’t be worse!