Glenn Middleton has endured 9-0 and 7-0 defeats with Dundee United.
He suffered the ignominy of relegation to the Championship and a few maddening afternoons in the second tier.
However, the Tannadice winger is adamant the United dressing room after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat against St Mirren was the most morose he has EVER experienced during his time with the club.
The damaging reverse saw the Buddies move to within two points of the Tangerines in fifth place, leaving Jim Goodwin’s charges facing a battle to hold on to a European qualification berth.
“After the St Mirren game, I think it was genuinely the most disappointed changing room I’ve experienced here,” said Middleton candidly.
“That includes the first season I was here, when things got really tough.
“But that doesn’t mean things are negative now. We’re positive and want to channel that feeling in the right way.
“The manager’s team talk after the game was about that; saying lets turn our focus on the next game and be ready for it.”
Middleton: Success is in our hands
Indeed, due to Aberdeen’s 4-0 hammering at the hands of Rangers, United remain just three points behind the Dons in fourth and with an identical goal difference.
And Middleton, who is in talks regarding a new deal with United – albeit no formal offer has yet been tabled – is keen to emphasise that the Terrors still have their fate in their own hands.
“The games after the split haven’t been what we wanted,” he acknowledged. “It has been frustrating, but I don’t think that is the big picture.
“We have put ourselves in a good position with two games to go. If you’d said to anyone at the start of the season that we would be in with a chance of fourth place with two games left, they absolutely would have taken that.
“There’s still a lot of football to be played. We had a meeting on Monday morning and that was made clear.
“We addressed what went wrong at the weekend but then it was about being positive and moving on. We’ve got two massive games and everything is in our hands.”
The Ibrox Blueprint
With 29 games as a Rangers player under his belt, Middleton is no stranger to Ibrox and is acutely aware of the quality possessed by the Gers – even during a largely underwhelming campaign.
However, he has outlined the blueprint to getting a result in Govan, from being “horrible” to play against to splitting the contest into “checkpoints”.
“Going to Ibrox is a big challenge but that’s not something we have shied away from,” he added.
“Our team has been good at making it uncomfortable for the opposition all season so we need to do that and impose ourselves on the game. When we do that, we have been able to cause most teams problems.
“So it’s about getting back to that, doing the basics really well and focusing on that kind of performance.
“The manager always says to split these games into parts and focus on chunks of 15 minutes; have your checkpoints. If you get through those, you put yourself in a good position.”
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