Rangers no longer title favourites according to Supercomputer calculations
The Scottish Premiership title race between Rangers and arch-rivals Celtic looks set to rage on right up until the final day of the season.
The Light Blues had been well clear before the winter break but the Hoops have been resurgent since the restart and that has been reflected in the predictions made by FiveThirtyEight’s supercomputer.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side have dropped to just a 39% chance of winning the Scottish title for the second successive season while Celtic have shot above them on 61%.
The calculations suggest that Rangers will finish with 87 points, just two behind Celtic, seeing the trophy head back to Parkhead.
It also predicts that there will be just one point separating six teams from fourth to ninth on either 47 or 46 points (Aberdeen, Dundee United, Motherwell, Hibernian, St. Mirren and Livingston).
Prove science wrong
This supercomputer won’t be the only thing predicting Celtic to beat Rangers to the title this season, but that isn’t a bad thing.
van Bronckhorst should be welcoming these revelations and showing them to his squad as motivation.
Very few things get footballers up for a game than being told to prove a point to the media and that needs to be the driving force for the majority of the games from now until the end of the season.
Especially when they take on the Hoops in the Old Firm derby, the manager needs to be reminding his side to send a statement to all the nay-sayers.
It isn’t a question of ability now, the winner of this season’s Scottish Premiership will have done so through fight and determination and van Bronckhorst needs his hardest workers to stand up and be counted when it matters most.
In other Rangers news, Steven Pienaar has been raving about this behind-the-scenes perfectionist at Ibrox.