CELTIC ISSUES REMAIN, BUT SOMEHOW, RANGERS ARE WORSE
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read
It’s been an eventful week for Celtic fans, despite there being no actual football match to speak of.
Fans have rallied, organized and come together to demand long overdue change in how Celtic’s business is run.
And yet somehow, amidst all the chaos, and despite the fact that, for the first time in their 13-year existence, the current incarnation of Rangers has some kind of stability in the board room, their footballing operation is in absolute freefall.
It's like watching a darts match between two flailing opponents, where one player throws a mediocre 60 and then his opponent steps up and throws 26.
Could Hearts Challenge Celtic for the Title?
I posed this question during the summer break and, most responses said “get real.”
However, we’re now 5 games into the league season, and Hearts are 9 points ahead of Rangers, who have yet to win a game and currently sit 10th in our 12 team top flight.
I think a change of manager at Ibrox is inevitable now. I haven’t seen a Rangers manager this broken, defeated and demoralized since, erm, the last one.
Celtic however, need to be careful. We’ve won 3 and drawn one so far in the league, but today’s trip to Kilmarnock will prove a stern test, as indeed Rugby Park always does.
Hearts look like the real deal, and we aren’t due to play them until the end of next month. What Hearts do between now and then could see them gather serious momentum ahead of our trip to Edinburgh. And even when Celtic are at their peak, Tynecastle is always a hard game.
Celtic have to keep winning. There is still the chance that Rangers might get that “new manager bounce”. Though I honestly wonder how long it will take for them to actually sack Russell Martin.
New Rangers supremo Andrew Cavenagh doesn’t strike me as the kind to bow down to fan pressure. He seems to have a similar stubborn arrogance to that of Celtic’s Dermot Desmond.
You kinda get the feeling that if Rangers were going to sack Martin, they would have done so by now. Though perhaps the goalless draw 2 weeks ago in the worst Glasgow Derby match I think I’ve ever seen, might just have granted him a temporary reprieve.
Martin made it clear he won’t resign, and given the lucrative, multi-season contract that I am sure he’s on, I wouldn’t either if I were him.
That will inevitably mean another big money pay-off for another failed Rangers manager.
And who would want to replace him?
Their fans will demand a big name, but they won’t get one. Because no self-respecting manager of any decent caliber wants to manage at a club where the fans turn on them so quickly, and who are so expectant of success, despite very little recent historical basis for that expectation.
I’m calling it now: Hearts will finish above Rangers in the League this season. However, if Celtic aren’t careful, there is a chance the Jambos might climb above us too.
