Lee Wallace: I don't know if I can contemplate another year in the Championship...

[ian1964 10,419]

...if we don't go up.

 

DEFENDER opens up his heart on a horror year off the park and how he has questioned his decision to remain at Ibrox when he had a chance to move on.

 

LEE WALLACE laid bare the personal and professional pain he has felt this season as he insisted Rangers can put a catastrophic campaign behind them and still emerge as a Premiership club.

 

The left-back provided a brutally frank assessment of the Ibrox club’s season from hell that could see Hearts clinch the Championship tomorrow.

 

Rangers’ plan to rampage up the leagues to the top flight crashed and burned months ago when it became obvious Hearts would not be caught.

 

Since then Hibs have gone unbeaten since December and are now strong favourites to finish second.

 

Rangers’ only hope is to come through the play-offs and with new boss Stuart McCall's ideas still filtering their way into the minds of the players there has not been the initial “bounce” Wallace and Co had hoped for.

 

There remains belief
 though he insisted – and a determination to get it right.

 

But whatever happens Wallace seems deeply wounded by the events of this season.

 

He admits he has questioned his decision to stay at Ibrox in 2012 when a host of stars jumped ship and believes his time as a Scotland player is gone.

 

But it was the personal trauma of losing his best friend Murray D’Angelo, who was hit by a car in December, and the death of his grandfather a few days later that hit him harder than results and performances.

 

He said: “The season has been a major disappointment.

 

“I’ve had my own personal lows round about the Christmas period, losing Murray and my Grandad a few days later. It was not a great period.

 

“I played the Livingston game on the day of Murray’s funeral. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do at the time.

 

“So in terms of lows there have been a few off the field while on the pitch it has been one of the lowest seasons imaginable.

 

“I’m not going to use those moments as an excuse for my form or how the team played.

 

“But there is an obvious strain on the mentality when you play high-pressure games and the environment around Ibrox wasn’t great at that period, with the manager handing in his notice and all the stuff off the pitch. It does have an effect.

 

“I’m a football man, I’ve taken my mate’s amateur team on a Tuesday and Thursday night in pouring rain for the last four years, going halfway across 
Scotland for midweek games.

 

“I love football and always wanted to be a footballer but moments like that off the pitch put everything into perspective.”

 

The constant grind, the playing against a background 
of chaos, has worn down 
Wallace and his team-mates down. That much is clear.

 

And yes there have been times he’s wondered if he should have left. The 27-year-old said: “I’ve got to stand by my decision but I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never rethought it, more so this season with how bad it has been.

 

“It was a decision I made at the time, knowing I wanted to be part of this journey coming back up. The guys who moved on had all been a success at the club and they had won trophies and become full internationals.

 

“I still saw myself in that bracket at that point in terms of trying to reach what they had won in the game. I still wanted to be successful.

 

Dave King applies to court for permission to become Rangers director

 

“If that meant doing the 
Third Division, League One, 
the Championship and the Premiership so be it.

 

“We did the first two at the first attempt and hopefully we can get back up from here at the first attempt. The job would be complete and we could all take it from there.

 

“Although this season has been a major disappointment it will become a small speck in the club’s history in a few years.

 

“If we’re still here in four or five years’ time we’ll look back at that when there’s a possibility 
of playing Champions League football again.

 

“That’s what I signed up for. I made my debut in the qualifiers.

 

“We can look back and say, ‘That was just a period when it wasn’t great but look where we are now’. That’s still the plan.”

 

And if it doesn’t work? “It would feel like a lost season but it would also feel like it has been a wasted three years,” he said.

 

“We always felt we were going to make it a seamless transition straight to the Premiership.

 

“It would be a massive 
disappointment and not many of us could contemplate staying and playing another year in the Championship.

 

“It would be a tough one for the mind. The mental strain that has been there over the past three years has been more difficult than anyone can imagine.

 

“Yes, you’re playing against part-time players and I’ll always take that into consideration.

 

“It has maybe been a bit different this year with the better opposition. We need to make sure while there’s still a chance, we 110 per cent get out of this league. It’s as simple as that.”

 

His international hopes have gone though. At least he thinks they have.

 

He said: “It might be too late now. There has been the 
emergence of a number of players, not just at left-back.

 

“Andrew Robertson came in and has done ever so well. The rise he has made in football has been astonishing.

 

“Having played against him 
in the Third Division, to go and be where he is – probably as 
the No.1 left-back in Gordon 
Strachan’s team now – is great.

 

“I never considered myself as a proper Scotland player.

 

“I was in and out of squads and what have I got, six caps?

 

“I was in then I was away then I played a game and I was away again. It didn’t really feel like I was a Scotland player.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, I had team-mates there and I’m not saying I wasn’t a good player at the camps. That wasn’t the case. But for me personally I was in a squad then I was out, in and out. If I get it back it’ll be a bonus but at this moment I don’t see it.”

 

Right now, international 
football is the least of his concerns. He wants a win against Hibs tomorrow and for Rangers to rescue themselves from the rubble of a season that has fallen around their ears.

 

He said: “There is still a fighting chance we can go up.

 

“We are all aware this is a big one for us. We are becoming organised and are looking at different ways of playing against Hibs.

 

“It’s an opportunity to take to the field and 
put right what has been wrong.”

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/rangers-lee-wallace-dont-know-5373254

[limeburner 0]

"We are becoming organised".Says it all in four words.

[pmu 0]

And not a murmur of criticism for super who basically fucked his career. The loon has had a tough year but he needs to break out of his depression and start playing if he even wants to considered good enough to stay not a case of whether he wants to..

[SteveC 150]

"not many of us could contemplate staying and playing another year in the Championship." I certainly don't want to contemplate you or many of your teammates doing so either, Lee. You aren't good enough for the Championship and have let us down, badly.

 

"We always felt we were going to make it a seamless transition straight to the Premiership." - Yes you did, while doing f*ck all work to achieve it, you expected it to be given to you for nothing.

Edited March 21, 2015 by SteveC

[ian1964 10,419]

A total clear out has been obvious for months now,regardless of what league we are in!

[johnnyk 158]

Overpaid underachiever, we could get much better with the wages he is on, wouldn't be missed much IMO, along with most of our team!

[der Berliner 3,251]

Once I saw the headline I knew what sort of replies would follow to the article. Not that we have any right to criticise him and his fellows, but it is almost becoming a sport now.

 

As for Lee, he was the only real SPL-class player who followed us through the lower leagues. He as well as we knew what that meant for his career and it was essentially inevitable that playing with low quality players against low quality players would end up playing less quality football. He probably had his worst season on the field and dare I say it, he might not be missed next year. At times one should, despite all recent shortcomings, look at the overall picture and remind oneself what he has done for the club on the whole.

[johnnyk 158]

I think we all respect what he did albeit staying on the same SPL wages playing in the third division etc. I am having a go because of the effort him and most of the other players have put in on this journey to where we are. At the start they didn't have to break sweat playing against part timers who also have other jobs and who earn a fraction of his wages but still had some very embarrassing results. But this season they have been terrible and how fans can defend them is beyond me. In the SPL he looked good, getting up and down the wing plenty during games, good crossing, scoring goals etc. Now most of the time it looks like he can't be bothered going on those runs, him and plenty others haven't given the same commitment on the pitch as like you say they have off the pitch while supposedly being hero's and putting their careers on the line by staying with us and dropping down the leagues. With the big wages he has been on all along I would expect him to do and be much more than he has simple as that.

Edited March 21, 2015 by johnnyk

[limeburner 0]

I was first to reply.

I hope the players have not rushed this decision to get organised this early in the season, after all its only nearly April.

Perhaps they should ,in hindsight give it another month.

[pmu 0]

its the arrogance that he states that HE might not want to play for us in Championship next year. It SHOULD NOT be his decision .. he ahs to earn it and right now he's not doing enough