Rangers vs Hearts preview: Over and over and over and over

Afternoon all, Rangers face a resurgent Hearts at Ibrox Stadium at 5pm today. This match preview is coming a bit later because I went for a walk this morning to a place called Badger Island, I was disappointed to discover there were no badgers present.

When it comes to today's opponents we have all seen their form this season, they started with what looked like a respectable point at home to us. Before spiralling into some of the worst form you could possibly imagine. One new manager later and they seem to be getting things back on track with a recent uptick in results and performance. They lost in Europe at home to Heidenheim in midweek, but that's by no means a disappointment given the quality of the German side.

I imagine the Jambos will see today as a chance to see how they measure up to the bigger sides under the new boss. So with that in mind we know they aren't coming to Ibrox expecting a defeat. Although our record at Ibrox is spotless in the league, teams will smell blood after our shaky performances following European games in recent weeks.

That brings us to the title of the article, it might seem a bit negative to point out once again that we can never take our level of performance from Europe to the league. But I think that until we show we can, I'll have no expectations or excitement for a game like today's.

I'm holding out slight hope that Sterling will continue at right back with Danilo coming in for Dessers, and that might give us something extra going forward. But we will need to wait and see, I hate feeling like I know what will happen at 5 before I even sit down to watch the game, but that's how this team makes me feel at the moment.

The biggest furore since Thursday has been an interview by under-fire striker Cyriel Dessers. As always, he was quite self deprecating of his own recent form, but commented that if he scored all his chances, he wouldn't be playing for Rangers. This is something that amused me, as it's a thing we say all the time about players as fans. But I know that it's also not something you want to hear your players saying. They should believe they can play at a higher level, and not be happy with where they are.

I do think the reaction has been blown of out proportion as always when it comes to Dessers. I'm glad he has found his shooting boots again, and I just hope that continues. It's a cliche, but players can say what they want when they're playing well, if he was scoring 3 a game as he alluded to, he could come out and say Chairman Mao was his inspiration and we'd say "Whatever helps you score goals for Rangers".

Aside from that my other big gripe with today is the kick off time. I'm bemused as to why Premier Sport can't have a game kick off at a normal hour, 5pm on a Sunday is strange. I understand Celtic are playing at 3 but that should have been 12 on a Saturday given they played in Europe on Tuesday. But that's just me, it feels ridiculous.

I am curious to see our line-up given we might see a few players come in, in the name of rotation. But I guess we will wait and see what Clement cooks up.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a nice afternoon and evening, don't let Rangers ruin it.