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Why parlous Rangers will trump Celtic to third successive SPL title


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Everyone thinks Rangers are skint and boring but Celtic are making all the right moves in pre-season. Sound familiar?

 

by Alexander Anderson on 13 August 2010

 

As the new SPL season dawns, why can everyone be sure Rangers will ensure this season finishes the same as last? Because we have exactly the same situation as at this point last year.

Rangers are champions, Celtic are chasing. There's a new man at the helm at Parkhead with all sorts of romantic notions having pushed his installation, there's Walter Smith still at Ibrox. There's lots of money being spent on new Celtic signings, there's none being spent at Ibrox.

But there's also the small fact that yet again Celtic are out of the Champions League group stage, Rangers are already in it and therefore the big UEFA TV money will be coming to the blue half of the city. Rangers are settled, disciplined and cohesive. Celtic are a team of under-pressure strangers.

And we all know how both clubs fared from this start point in 2009. Only a last-minute goal in a replay at the home of Scotland's new third force prevented The Gers completing a domestic treble. Instead they had to "settle" for a second straight SPL title, won at an absolute canter, and an historically sensational CIS League Cup final win over a St Mirren side with a two-man advantage when they fell behind.

A few days later, as Rangers made that Scottish Cup exit to a destiny-fuelled Dundee United, news came through that St Mirren had coped surprisingly well in their first match after their Hampden tragedy.

The Paisley Buddies played against a full Celtic side for 90 minutes in the SPL, and stuffed them 4-0. Tony Mowbray, the man who'd come to Parkhead as the new guru of glam at the outset of 2009/10 was gone within 24 hours. It was a season where even the bad stuff had great repercussions for Rangers fans.

The Gers went crashing out of the Champions League with three straight home hammerings. But the fact they conceded only one goal per away game, losing only one of those games, vindicated the defensive formation which took them to the 2008 UEFA Cup final with a series of home draws.

There'll be no more blind calls for Rangers to aimlessly cede possession against European opponents at Ibrox.

Furthermore, the unnecessary fan backlash after the freakish 4-1 loss to Unirea Urziceni sowed the seeds for Walter Smith's best tactical move of the season.

In a radio interview a few days later he played The Rangers Supporters Trust off against the Lloyds Banking Group to make two organisations he dislikes to create the media storm which took all the pressure off him and his players.

Neil Lennon's next big game is the Europa League play-off. It may actually benefit Celtic to have drawn Utrecht, whose home ground's atmosphere makes it the Tynecastle of Holland. This way the green-and-white hooped ones can go crashing out of Europe altogether and not see continental competition become a further drain on their slim domestic chances, as it did last season.

Celtic need the confidence from a Europa League group place but the money they'll gain is negligable in comparison to what Rangers will make in the big boys' competition. And the greater long-term gain is to be made in qualifying for next season's Champions League. The financial disparity between the two clubs will soon be closed.

Skint Rangers may be, but only by their own standards, only by Champions League standards - this does not mean they can't lay on the excitement in Scotland.

Last season Rangers won both Old Firm games at Ibrox. They went down at Pittodrie but that just set in motion a run of form which blew the league away. Within the space of a few December days Rangers beat Dundee United by an aggregate of 10-1, home and away.

Having gone a man then a goal down before coming back to beat Hearts at Tynecastle in August, The Gers returned there in spring to win 4-1.

They claimed the title with a second win at Easter Road, the first one being achieved with a 4-goal backlash after Hibs scored the fastest goal in SPL history.

And for those who think defending like an open barn door is a more "honest" form of football, what about the champions' 4-1 loss at St Johnstone? Doesn't get much more "stylish" than that.

Neil Lennon has endured two meaningful games as Celtic manager, in terms of competition. He lost both spectacularly. But if we take Braga and Ross County out of the equation, Lennon has enjoyed one win in his short tenure which Celtic fans will see as significant. Beating Rangers 2-1 last season long after the title was in Ibrox hands.

Basically, Rangers lost the last derby of the season at Parkhead in exactly the same style they'd won the first one at Ibrox.

But the reaction couldn't have been more different. Celtic had more of the ball at Ibrox, had a penalty claim turned down, lost 2-1 and then all hell was let loose in the media as refereeing conspiracies and those nonsensical accusations about "style" came flooding out the away dressing room.

Nothing was mentioned of the fact Rangers lost three key players in the 24 hours leading up to the game and two more before half-time.

At Parkhead in springtime, Rangers had more of the ball than during any trip to the home of their biggest rival in the last decade. Kenny Miller was sensational, scored a great goal and was denied a stone-wall penalty. Rangers lost 2-1 as Celtic burst out of their strait-jacket twice to score. No one at Ibrox complained.

Rangers people understand football. They understand the breaks do indeed even themselves out and, most of all, they know that winning football - as long as it doesn't involve outright cheating - is the most stylish football of all. Everything else is just window dressing.

And that's all Celtic's 2010/11 campaign is. Their new management team, their striker signed from Scunthorpe, their belief Rangers are lucky and their idea that Neil Lennon - who played for the club for half a decade - is some sort of "through and through Celtic man" or that that has anything to do with his ability to manage: All just window dressing.

The ribbons will be staying at brox, on the handles of the SPL trophy.

 

http://www.sportingo.com/football/a14023_why-parlous-rangers-will-trump-celtic-third-successive-spl-title

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